Cumin
by LoweFantasy
Summary: It seems weird, but harmless, when SPR is hired to make the crying of a nonexistent baby stop. Though Mai loves babies and is more than willing to help, the crying can't be smothered, because how do you fulfill the need of something that was never technically alive?
1. Prologue

Cumin

By LoweFantasy

Prologue

"Yay, another old mansion. What a surprise."

Despite that comment, it was only a mansion in my opinion, because Naru had corrected me in saying it was little more than a chateau or larger home, which only brought up the question of what kind of house _he_ lived in. Eight bedrooms, four full bathrooms, and the glorious golden oak grand staircase filling up the majority of the main hall was a mansion to me.

Not to mention we had been greeted by a suited butler, who acted as though he didn't hear my comment and instead focused on Lin.

"You must be Mr. Shibuya."

"No." And there we have it! Another eloquent and beautifully delivered speech from our favorite perpetual rain cloud.

The butler only faltered for a moment before redirecting his bow to Naru.

"Excuse me, I did not expect my master's guest to be so young. Right this way."

We didn't go up the polished, red carpeted staircase. Rather we slipped around it to an open door, which revealed a small, but lavished and comfortable study within. A thick man sat behind a desk the same beautiful polished oak as the staircase.

"Shibuya Psychic Research," he bobbed his head as though testing the taste of the words. "Right on time. Since I have yet to meet you in person, would Mr. Shibuya be so kind as to show himself?"

Naru stepped forward with all his expected self-confidence. "That would be me. I presume there has been a room set aside for us to set up base?"

The thick, mustached man merely blinked. "Yes. Did you get my email on the details?"

"Yes, otherwise I wouldn't be here."

"You have proof of credentials?"

It was the most formulaic meeting we had ever had with a client. Usually Lin or Naru had all the paperwork signed and worked out before hand, but for the first time one insisted on finishing the paperwork at his home and in person, for whatever reason. Thus, after I signed my own name on the dotted line that showed I wouldn't be suing the crap out of him if I got hurt on his premise and that he could sue the crap out of me if I was a lying jackweed, I got to sit in the corner and be bored out of my mind.

By the time they finally finished and we got to unloading the van, I had memorized every swirl in his study's maroon rug.

"What are your impressions on the house?" Naru asked me as he handed me a bundle of poles for our compactable shelves.

"Boring?"

He gave me a familiar droll stare.

"What? You asked."

"Then forget I asked." He handed off a box to Lin, then took one of his own. "Those who can will be arriving tomorrow. Until then I'd like you to pay attention for anything strange."

"Why me? Oh, wait, don't ask. Latent psychic, yadah yadah. You know not to expect much, right?"

He just gave me another one of those droll stares, the ones that called me an idiot with the least expenditure of calories. It never failed to make something tick above my eye. One of these days—

"Shouldn't you be taking that to base?"

"Yeah yeah, I'm getting to it."

Base turned out to be an unused sitting room in the back of the house. It basically consisted of a squashy, expensive looking brown leather couch, another one of those maroon Persian rugs, and an ornate fireplace. The paneling in the walls was the same warm oak, but interspaced with your normal wallpaper. A fire was already lit in the grates and I thankfully thawed my hands on it after dumping the shelves in the corner.

I shouldn't be so ungrateful. The fact that I was being paid to stay in a fancy house for a few days, food included, should have been a blast. But after the last mansion case we had, where doors and staircases led to nowhere and a monster prowled the halls for blood…

I shuddered, suddenly very happy that this house was boring—and technically not a 'mansion.'

"Mai, I'd like to be done before dawn."

Naru stood behind me in the doorway, that imperious set to his shoulders and his chin lowered in just the right angle to drop his bangs to his eyes. Even with the obvious arrogance, he was still handsome enough to make my stomach heat up, and it irritated me to no end.

I shoved my fists to my sides. "Jeeze, you're so impatient! I've probably only been here for thirty seconds, tops!"

"That's thirty seconds you could have been carrying equipment. I don't pay you to loaf."

"Rwar, you're grouchier than usual. Don't like paperwork or something?"

"Mai."

"I'm going! I'm going!"

But even as I slipped past him, I had meant what I said. Yes he was a bossy asshole with perpetual PMS on some days, but usually starting a case put him in the best of moods. It was the possibility, I supposed, the opening of a new mystery which he loved so much.

Outside in the early winter chill, I watched my breath rise as Lin put a box into my arms. I sagged under its weight and protested, so Lin sighed and handed me a monitor instead. I was just stepping over the threshold when I heard it: a baby, crying from somewhere on the second floor. I couldn't help but smile.

"So he has a family." Our client hadn't looked the type, at least to me. But that just went to show how first impressions could always be wrong. Either way, I absolutely adored babies! The cooing, the little baby feet, that unique smell of Johnson's baby shampoo, the tiny little onesies—maybe, if things got slow I could, you know, offer to help…

Naru had the first shelf set up against the right wall. I couldn't help but notice how the firelight played on the sheen of his black hair.

"Hey, Naru, do you know how old his baby is?"

He paused from snapping a shelf in place. "What?"

"Our client's baby. I heard it crying when I just came in and was wondering."

I put down the monitor besides the shelves, thinking he was just trying to remember. But when I looked up he had his head cocked to the side, ear up to hear.

"Naru?"

"What?"

"Did you hear me?"

"Of course I heard you. Our client doesn't have any children. Never has."

A chill crawled up my spine. I could hope that I was hearing things, but it was rarely the case. That was just to be expected when you worked for a ghost hunter.

Still, I wanted to hit my head against the stupid aluminum shelf until it bled. What happened to that nice streak of not so creepy cases we had been having? The obviously boring big house? Did I jinx us somehow?

Sigh. So much for boring.


	2. Babies Don't Make Good Ghosts

"So we're here to figure out why people keep hearing a nonexistent baby cry?" asked Ayako. "That's it? No knocking, no rattling doors, no cold chills—nothing?"

Naru had his legs crossed in a folding chair he had brought from the van. I had yet to see him sit on the much comfier, squishier couch, which I had fallen in love with and currently had my face pressed into it. "Well, seeing as one of the top ten things people fear is the sound of a baby crying, I would hardly call it nothing."

"Tell me about it. It's been waking me up on and off all night." I rubbed a hand down my itchy eyes and let it flop to the side. Another reason why I had fallen in love with the comfy couch: I was exhausted. "If every night is going to be like this I'm going to die of sleep deprivation. Like dead dead. Super dead."

Naru snorted. "Just don't cause problems for me when you do. Either way I'd like to get this case done with as soon as possible. Lin and Mai have already set up cameras in all the rooms where the crying is said to be heard. Ayako, Takigawa, I'd like you to go up and get a feel for it, tell me if you sense anything. Mai, I'm going to need some temperature readings."

"Again?"

"It's been ten hours, most of which you were asleep."

"More like wanted to sleep." But at the pointed look he gave me I heaved a sigh. "Fine, I'll move my weak body to get you your damn temps."

Not caring how unprofessional it looked, I oozed off of the couch. Takigawa, or Monk as I liked to call him, snickered. He was wearing a long sleeved turtle neck sweater like me, which was the first thing we both pointed out on meeting this morning.

"Practicing for _Flubber_?"

"Get off it, Monk, don't you have work to do too?"

"Sure you don't need a cart or something?"

"If you're done acting like children…" Naru's voice had turned cold.

That got us out quick, and in normal, non- _Flubber_ manner. I barely had the mind to grab the clipboard and thermometer on our way out.

"Jeeze, what's up with him?" asked Ayako.

"He's just being his usually grumpy self," I said, rubbing my eyes again. "It isn't like he could hear any baby crying, or if he has he hasn't told me."

Takigawa stopped with me at the foot of the stairs. "Is it really that bad?"

"You'll see."

Ayako heaved a heavy sigh and flicked her red hair behind her shoulder. "God, I hate children. Well I guess I'll look over the ground floor first, I'll meet up with you two later."

We waved her off and Monk and I headed up the red carpet of the golden oak stairs. Paintings of various mountain scenery in gilded frames hung high on the walls, and I could see the texture of the paints as we rose. One had a lone elk drinking from a crystalline stream.

"So…have you confessed yet?"

I lost my footing on the top step and had to steady myself on the balustrade. The same maroon rug spread out on the landing, which broke off into two different directions lined by more red carpet.

I wrinkled my nose at him. "Confessed to what?"

"You know, to Naru."

I screwed up my face and tried to focus on marching towards the right hall. "I haven't spat in his tea lately, if that's what you're thinking."

"You know what I'm talking about Mai." I could just hear the smug smirk on his stupid face.

I didn't want to talk about this. I didn't want to EVER talk about this. So I figured I might as well end it here and now.

"He rejected me. There, happy?"

An awkward silence followed me. The wall lamps lining the hallway had twisted, heart shaped brass holders that splotched red with reflections of my sweater. I pulled the sleeves back down over my cold fingers.

Takigawa jogged back up to my side, as though he had frozen in place at the landing. "Wait, are you sure? What were his exact words?"

"Monk, will you drop it? Besides, the whole house has microphones everywhere, remember?"

That worked well enough. Even Takigawa didn't want to face the irritated ghost hunter of our conversations when he asked us why we felt the need to talk about our pathetic love lives.

He talked with me as we went from room to room, recording temperatures and letting him get a feel for spirits. I told him about how boring my classes were, how my old friends had sort of drifted away and how it was odd that I didn't mind so much, and also how the water heater had busted in my apartment. Cold showers in the winter SUCKED.

"Do you need Bou-san to drop by and fix it?" he asked. "Poor little Mai, all alone with no warm water. You do have heat, right?"

"Of course, Monk, just because my apartment is old doesn't mean I live in a hovel."

"Still, you should have called. I told you I was here for you. You're only sixteen, after all."

I had to roll my eyes at that after I scribbled down my last six. No wonder my fingers were freezing off. The entire house wasn't much warmer than it was outside. "I've been living on my own for a while. I can take care of myself, don't worry." I hesitated. "But…I would appreciate the help with my water heater. It is pretty bad."

Takigawa beamed and flashed me a thumbs up. "You can count on me! How about after the case is done? Can't have you catching a cold."

"Isn't getting sick from being cold a myth? My biology teacher was saying something about that."

As I had wanted, I easily diverted the conversation back to normal things. My insides had already twisted into knots.

That's right. I can take care of myself. I didn't need Naru, even if he was the reason I had my own place. Even if he was the one supporting me, not the other way around, job or no job.

I shook myself and snapped the cap over the end of the thermometer.

"Well, that's the last up here. Best we get downstairs, there's a really beautiful library down there—"

My last words were cut off by a hair curdling yowl. Somehow, somewhere, an animal was being tortured to the last of its endurance. A split second later my heart stopped as I realized the animal was human—another infant.

Takigawa swore. But just as we turned to run out the door, the screaming stopped, leaving a hollow ringing behind. I put a hand to my thundering heart and exchanged a glance with him.

"Just crying nonexistent babies," he said. "Bit of an under exaggeration."

I raised my hands in defense. "Don't look at me, Ayako's the one that jinxed us."

He sighed. "We're getting too use to this. Ten bucks says she'll try to expel an earth bound spirit."

My chest felt ill. The scream still echoed in my head with terrifying clarity, so I threw myself into his invitation to dry humor. "That's not even a bet. Ten bucks says Naru will have you exorcise the place before lunch."

"Nah, before dinner. Fifteen."

But even with the light hearted humor, my hands trembled in my sleeves, and the ice of my fingers had crawled up my arms.

What would have to happen for a baby to make such a sound?

 **Alright, folks, I'm not sure about this story, but I'm keeping it to my once a week update guarantee, as usual. In the meantime, pet a cat with your face!**


	3. You Always Start by Feeling Useless

**Still wondering if I want to continue this...hmm...**

Chapter 2

"My research tells me that nothing out of the ordinary ever occurred in this house, besides the father of the previous owner having a borderline obsession with Thailand. The owner before him built the house in the late 1940's during the economic boom, but soon after had to sell due to the recession. But our Thai fan made quite a living off of collecting and selling Thai antiques. He lived here till he died in 1996, afterwards which the house was empty until his son could sell it in 2003 to our client. Apparently the disturbances didn't start until he had been here for a week or so. For a while he passed it off as some malfunction of the house and slept with earplugs until the contractors he had hired could find the flaw. Since they found none, and also with the development of the crying getting past said earplugs, our client grew desperate to be able to sleep in his own home and that is where we come into the picture." Naru snapped the narrow black folder closed. "And before you ask, no, a baby hasn't died here in the past, nor has any children at all."

We had all gathered back to base, in front of the lone lit fire in the seemingly abandoned house, to eat our pasta and breadstick lunch and get the info from our boss. Takigawa, Ayako, and I enjoyed the deliciously comfy huge couch while Naru and Lin sat in their metal folding chairs. Naru could have not moved once from his spot since I'd woken up that morning, just staring at his laptop and listening to the screeching baby recordings over and over.

"Was there anything here before the house was built?" I asked, twirling noodles about my fork. "We did have that one case where the spirit didn't inhabit the house itself, but a well that it had built over."

"I'm currently looking into that possibility, but so far I haven't found any records of the previous owners even having the same issue as our Mr. Hinogashi. Like I stated before: nothing extraordinary has ever happened in this house."

"Until now," said Ayako, daintily sipping at her tea. "Are you sure the owner isn't running some secret baby killing clinic in the basement or something?"

"Who the hell would run a baby killing clinic?" I cried.

"The house doesn't even have a basement," said Naru dryly. "I've double verified this during my standard exam of the ground beneath. There isn't even a hole, and I highly doubt our client is the type of man to have anything to do with children. He likes his quiet, which is partially the reason why we will have the house to our selves until the end of the case. With that in mind I would appreciate it if none of you did anything that might stain the carpets, like slurping your spaghetti like a five year old."

Just as he said that, the noodle I'd been sucking up smacked me between the eyes. I gave him my best big eyed, innocent look and prayed there wasn't red sauce around my mouth as well. He just gave me the usual 'you're an idiot' look.

Ugh, how did I ever fall in love with this man?

"Since you've gotten a feel for the house and the situation, I'd like to hear your thoughts. Takigawa-san?"

"Since you've ruled off a site-bound spirit, I think we might be dealing with a possessed vessel of sorts. Maybe the problem isn't the house, but something the client owns. Do you think it would be okay if we looked through his stuff for anything that might hold the spirit of a baby?"

Naru nodded. "I've already called to ask just that. My thoughts were much the same. Ayako?"

"I think you best get on with that info on what might have been here before the house was built. It could be a spirit attached to the earth itself."

"But that's where it get's strange," Takigawa put his plate down and set his chin upon his folded hands, thoughtfully. "I've never heard of an infant ghost, because infants don't know enough to be held back from passing on. They're completely innocent—pure. No hatred, no jealousy, no anger or anguish."

"Perhaps it's not a baby," I added. "It could be the spirit of a young mother whose death somehow connects with her baby, or the death of her baby."

"And what, she could be broadcasting her baby's cries to the rest of us and nothing else just for giggles?" Naru's skepticism grated on me like sandpaper to old paint, and I scowled.

"What? Why not? You can't know everyone's reasoning or emotions, can you? Everybody's different."

"I was not denying your hypothesis. Just expressing how very unlikely I think it is." Before I could think of another comeback to that—something about his know-it-all snootiness being wrong on occasion and when I had been right on those same occasions—he slapped the clipboard onto the coffee table. "Enough chit chat. We can make guesses all day, but the reason won't matter so much as we can get rid of it. Takigawa, are you up to a cleansing? John's busy, so I only plan on calling him for backup in case of an emergency."

"Hey, what about me!"

He leveled his ice blue gaze on Ayako. "Some protective charms for each of us would be nice, just in case. Oh, and if you're feeling up to it, I guess you can try your hand in exorcising the spirits."

"You guess?" A tick had started somewhere above her left eye. "Why you bratty little—"

I broke in across her, raising my fork like a hand in the classroom. "What about me?"

Naru just crossed his arms. "What about you?"

"Don't you have something I can do?"

The smirk he gave me was one I knew all too well, and which was less common then the 'you're a moron' sneer. Even though I knew some smart-ass insult was about to follow, my gut still writhed with heat at the sight as a part of my mind brought up that same smirk in a much different situation, one which no girl my age with any morals should think about.

"How about you clean up your face? Or do you need me to do that for you too?"

Luckily, the heat of my anger managed to cover the blush.

"Did you have to make it sound so insulting? Man, Naru, you are such a jerk! I was just asking what I could do to help!"

"Duly noted," he turned back to Ayako and Takigawa as though I hadn't just turned volcano in his face. "We'll be watching from here."

The priestess and monk nodded and headed out to get started. I waited, fists clenched, my teeth squeaking against each other. When he continued to sit there on his laptop like the arse he was, I threw up my hand.

"Fine! I'll be in the kitchen doing homework. If you need me, don't bother, because it won't like I'll be any help fighting off spirits anyways."

Before he could say anything—not like he tried—I stomped after Ayako and Takigawa and took a swinging left on the other side of the stairs, where another smaller hallway led to the spacious, modern, granite topped kitchen.

Even though Mr. Hinogashi had given us full reign of the kitchen, I still hesistated as I filled up the teapot of water and dug through one of the vast cupboards for a suitable tea—not earl grey, for sure. Only God knew how many cups of that I'd had to make for Naru the tea-addicted-narcissist.

While the water heated up, I jogged out and took the stairs two at a time to grab my homework from my room. The landing of the hallway stretched wide to either end, and a porch of sorts ended the west side, where my room was. If it weren't winter outside, I would have loved to get out of this stifling rich house to get some sun. All the velveteen drapes, Persian rugs, and hardwood paneling had started to feel just a tad bit stifling. Even grabbing my backpack from besides the four poster bed I slept on the night before had a comforter I didn't even want to know the price of.

The teapot was whistling by the time I got back. It pulled it off, filled my teacup, and boasted myself up onto the fine black granite counter to tackle my trigonometry. While math wasn't my best subject, it also wasn't my hated. I found the cold meticulous logic comforting at times when I wanted my brain to turn off, which of late happened to be often.

Because the buzz of a rejected heart is nothing but a nuisance.

Minutes passed in cautious mathematical peace. At some point I used my fingernail to trace a symbol of an angle in one of my triangle diagrams before taking a careful sip of hot tea. Mmm, peppermint. So not earl grey.

Three more equations, a triangle found all its sides, and the heater started humming hot air into the grates. The metal 'S's that held cupped lights on the ceiling didn't flicker once. Every appliance gleamed with stainless steel, every cupboard made of the best wood.

So quiet. I couldn't even hear the sounds of Monk's and Ayako's footsteps, or the whirr of Naru's computers across the main hallway.

I took another sip of my tea. The tip of my pencil had frozen on a broken equation with too many variables. Why did they always use 'x'? What was the point of even learning this stupid stuff anyways? It wasn't like I wanted to go into computers or math or anything. It wasn't like I even had a plan for my life other than…

Almost as though triggered by my train of thought, the whimpering mewls of a baby started up somewhere above me. A heavy aching twisted my heart, as though with wires.

"I don't think I even want to know…"


	4. Stillborn

Chapter 3

After the exorcism, Naru had the three of us search the house for anything that could have been a vessel of sorts for spirits. At one point Takigawa found a pull down ladder to the attic, and since Ayako hated dust and spiders like the plague and Takigawa was uncertain the decayed wooden rungs of the ladder would hold his weight, I was sent up with a flashlight.

"You're such a baby," I muttered loud enough for her to hear. "If I get bitten by a black widow and die, it's going to be all your fault."

"Technically it will be all Naru's," said Ayako with a sniff.

It took more than a little bit of courage to poke my head up past the floorboards. Nose full of the must of forgotten space and mildew, I brought up the flashlight. The edges of its beams were foggy, as though the air itself had gathered layers of dust. The roof had the traditional paper wrapped fiberglass insulation stuffed in-between the eaves, and, of course, streamers of cobwebs slung here and there like a spider party. Despite that, the attic was large enough to count as another floor in and of itself, with room to stand and more. I could even see a covered window at one end.

"See anything?" said Takigawa.

"A few boxes," I moved the light towards the west side to see how wide the place was. Another wood paneled wall held up the idea that this could have been a room unto itself. Most attics I knew just had the roofs slope down until they met the floor. Along this wall were more boxes, and a few antique pieces of furniture. "And I think a dresser and table, maybe a half a dozen chairs or so."

"Well, are you going to check them out or not?"

I shot him my best 'are you freaking kidding me?' look over my shoulder. He just sent me an equally incredulous look back.

"After all the things we've faced, you're going to let some dried out house spiders and maybe a dead mouse scare you?"

"Shut up, Monk, don't you know freaky stuff always happens in the attic? Attics and basements."

"Then just use the warding magic I taught you. Besides, we did exorcise the house already, there's probably nothing."

"Except rats that could bite me and give me malaria."

Ayako snorted. "You can't get malaria from rats, now just get up there already. If anything happens I'll shove Monk up with you."

Takigawa grimaced. "Gee, thanks, though I don't see you rushing in to help."

I sighed through Ayako's second round of excuses about phobias and nails and hair while climbing up onto the dusty floor. I stood up slowly, leery of sticking my head into a nest of cobwebs, used or unused and swung my flashlight across the wall of furniture and boxes.

"What am I suppose to be looking for anyways?"

"You've got a sixth sense, don't you?" called up Takigawa.

"Ugh, for the last time, it's not as reliable as you lot seem to think it is."

"And for the last time, it is. Now hurry up. Wouldn't want you catching malaria."

I smiled as Takigawa chuckled at his own joke and Ayako scoffed.

After taking a few steps deeper into the attic, I allowed myself to fall into the cautious security that a tarantula wasn't about to drop on my head. I did see a few daddy long legs scurry for cover when I moved the first box, but other than that the attic seemed to be rather clean. The heavy layers of dust seemed to only be on the floor and some of the boxes, which turned out to be filled with yellowing layers of old classified newspapers. Thinking they might hold at least a little more information on the previous owners, I shouted a heads up to those below and got ready to lift.

Warm and dark red. My world played a steady tho-rump—tho-rump one after the other, sometimes quick, sometimes slow, offset by the cadence of muffled voices, one of which always rumbled around me. I'd blink to darken my world, squeeze hands that didn't always listen, and try to explore the planet I floated in.

But the dark red was growing a darker dark than I had ever experienced. A darkness off set with bursts of burning blue stars that swallowed the tho-rump. It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. I opened my mouth to scream, but of course, I had never screamed before, and what would there be to scream for? What could change?

Dark dark dark.

The box of newspapers dropped on my toes. I gasped, which turned into a cough as unsettled dust clogged my windpipe.

"Mai? You okay?"

Head spinning, I crouched back down to my box, hacking for air. What had just happened? Had I stopped breathing there for a moment? If it had been a vision, it had been nothing like those I'd had before.

Just as I caught my voice, Monk appeared at the top of the ladder, half-lit by the flashlight on the floor.

"Mai!"

"I'm fine," I said as he made his way over. "Just caught off guard. Ladder break on you?"

"Surprisingly, no, but let's not test our luck." He crouched down to my level. "You really all right? You look like you've had a vision or something, and one of the bad ones."

"I don't know. It was…so weird." I shivered with a sudden chill. "Whatever, can we just get this out already? Since you're up here anyways you can check out the other stuff for whatever."

There must have been something in the way I said this, for Takigawa didn't argue and helped me down with an unusually solemn expression. I didn't wait to help with the boxes, but left Ayako to catch the ones he tossed down. Lucky paper wasn't that heavy.

I couldn't stay. I had to go somewhere—get somewhere safe.

My arms wouldn't stop trembling. Even back on the ground floor, where most of the heating was, I still felt cold. The throbbing tho-rump of the vision stuck somewhere against my back, as though it were a thing rather than a place that had jumped on for a piggy back ride.

The handles of the folding doors to base were warm against my fingers.

Naru at first glanced up as he usually did, as though intending to go right back to whatever he was doing once he knew who it was invading his space, but then he stopped.

"Mai?"

The moment I heard him speak my name I was across the room and at his feet, wrapping my arms tight about one of his legs. I craved the warmth of his calve through his pant legs. So cold, so dark—this was safe. Naru was safe.

He flinched. "What's gotten into you?"

I couldn't say. I didn't understand myself. It wasn't like I'd seen anything gruesome.

But then what was this empty, raw, unstable apprehension? Why couldn't I stop shaking? Maybe I was possessed? No, that couldn't be it. I had been possessed enough times to know what that would be like.

A book snapped closed above my head. "Get a hold of yourself. I'd like my leg back."

My tight muscles protested as I yanked them back and scrambled to get back onto my feet with as much dignity as possible. "Sorry, I—"

My knees gave in like paper. Naru's lap teetered with the world and I reached out to catch myself.

A squeak of a chair, and Naru held me by my shoulders. I could feel the heat of his fingers even through my long sleeved shirt.

I fumbled for my footing.

"Sorry…sorry…" Why did I still feel light headed?

"What happened?"

Another squeak of chair legs and Lin had turned from his laptop to us.

"Nothing! I-I'm just a b-bit thrown off by a vision thingy, just give me a moment."

"You ran in here and hugged my leg," he said flatly. "I know my legs are especially attractive, but I don't see how that's a comfort, unless what you saw was especially ugly. What did you see?"

I managed to straighten my legs long enough to push away from him and onto the squashy couch. The fire had warmed it. I could have purred. "Not much…"

Ocean-cool eyes flashed. "Mai—"

"I'm serious! All I saw was a bunch of dark-red, like blood, all around me, except it wasn't wet or anything—though I guess I was also floating in…something…"

"What about you're other senses? Hear? Feel? Touch?"

"Not much there either…" I dug my hands under my thighs, hoping to thaw them. I couldn't shake the longing to be back on the floor, wrapped about his leg, just because it meant that I was with him, touch him, 'grounded' by him, no matter what he said contrary.

A thin log cracked in the fireplace, spewing orange bright sparks up the chimney.

Then I knew.

"I was in the womb." I pulled out my hands and tucked them under my arms. My thighs weren't working. "The heartbeat, the floating…"

Naru settled himself back onto his chair, serious scowl still in place. "Then what unsettled you so badly? Surely that wasn't it."

Shivering, fingers aching with the warmth of my arms, I looked up at him and wanted; his warmth, his presence, his acknowledgement, his affections…him.

I slammed my thoughts down there and swallowed.

"I…died."


	5. Kuman Thong

Chapter 4

By late that evening, no one had heard any crying, so we were hopeful that the exorcisms had worked. As Takigawa said, it was always nice to have a case that actually was as straightforward as it appeared. I was just happy that after an hour or so by the fire with my head in the last of my trigonometry homework, I was more or less back to normal and not hankering to stick myself to Naru's shin.

Ayako and Takigawa headed to bed first. At the thought of the cold, fancy comforter on my grand four poster bed, I stayed put on the cushion of the couch that I had occupied since the end of dinner. A novel I had brought from home was open on my knees. I had already read it once, and I was enjoying the story at a slower pace.

Also, though I hated admitting it to myself, I felt safer at the base. Hopefully it wasn't just because Naru was there going over the data for that day.

"We need a camera up in the attic," he told Yui, who made a note on something nearby.

I fazed them out a bit as one of my more favorite parts of the book came up. The heroine was putting to action her plan of escape by first drugging the maid who kept tabs on her and cutting off her hair in order to complete the disguise. A small satchel of rubies under a stone, a dagger, a green dress that fit just right—hopefully she wouldn't get caught.

A pair of fingers snapped between me and my book.

"Did you hear me?"

I blinked stupidly at Naru. He sighed.

"When did you have your vision in the attic?"

"Right after I lifted those boxes of newspapers. Have you found anything in them?"

"Besides mouse droppings, no. There are a few ads for what could have been the Thai antiques the previous owner would have been looking for, but unless we find one of them floating around here, I don't see it as relevant."

I pouted. Nothing I found was ever relevant, or at least he would never admit it as.

"If needed, you could take me to the exact place you found them, right?"

"Why? So you could test the dust?"

"No, so I could look for secret compartments. Really, Mai, whatever you're reading it's killing your brain cells."

If I hadn't been curious and tired and maybe a bit too attached to the story, I would have chucked my book at his face. I took aim with it, though, hoping that would get the message across. "Okay, smart ass, what are you thinking? Already have this case solved?"

"Yes." He said in that smug little tone of his that suggested the rest of us should have caught on as well. "The vision you had was of a baby that died in the womb, so a stillborn or a late term abortion, and there is only one Thai talisman I can think of that could involved that."

"Which would be?"

"A Kuman Thong," said Lin from the computer. "Ancient Thai black magic, and highly illegal _if_ it's the real artifact. Most found now a days are plastic figurines used to make domestic shrines with much more docile affects, such as everyday good luck. Kind of like a pet talisman—if given the right offerings."

"Let me guess: no offerings, bad luck?"

"More or less. Offerings to today's Kuman Thongs consist of a sweet red beverage, like a soda or Kool-Aid, and small children's toys."

"If the previous owner had managed to figure out a trade for real Kuman Thongs," said Naru, "it would have been highly lucrative. It would also explain why he would have hid them away where no one could find them and not have told anyone they existed before he died."

"And what do stillborn babies have to do with all this?" I asked, if somewhat cautiously.

"Really, Mai, use your brain. Why would you offer a talisman toys?"

I shuddered. "Are you saying Kuman Thongs…are dead babies?"

"After the proper rites," said Naru. "Surgically removed from the mother, roasted, soaked in Nam Man Phrai , covered in gold leaf—the details are hardly important."

"Nam Man what?"

"It's an oil gathered by burning a candle under the chin of a dead child or a woman who died in childbirth," said Lin flatly.

I winced. "Oh gee, that's the good stuff right there. This Thai black magic sounds pretty hard core."

"It's more or less necromancy," said Naru. "And I would appreciate it if you didn't take this so lightly. If there's a real Kuman Thong tucked away in this house, it's been neglected for quite some time."

"But what harm could a little baby do? Besides driving people up the wall."

"The more white the plain, the greater horror is the stain," said Naru, his attention already drifting back to the screens and layers of data waiting for him on the table.

"Is that a limerick from somewhere or something?"

But neither of them answered, engrossed with their individual studies. I watched Naru's back for a few seconds more, trying not to trace the lines of his broad shoulders, before returning to my book.

Lin eventually trailed off to bed while Naru stayed behind to make notes and click through more of the tapes. I closed my heavy eyes for a moment to gather the will power to smother the little butterflies in my stomach at the thought of being alone in the room with Naru late at night. The next thing I knew I was being woken up by a blanket being thrown over me and my book being slipped out from my hands.

The crinkle of the metal grate in front of the fireplace woke me up next as someone threw another log onto the fire. Sunlight tickled the back of my eyelids and I groaned.

"Any dreams, Mai dearest?" said Takigawa in a sing-song voice.

"Ugh, don't call her that, it makes you sound like a dirty old man."

"I was obviously joking, or do you not understand dry humor? Rise and shine, Mai, I've got pancakes for you in the kitchen! And I promise Ayako didn't touch the griddle once."

"That was one time! Screw it, forget you." Ayako's finely manicured nails scratched my back lightly. "Come on, Mai, Naru's got some work for us in the attic today. Best get up before he realizes you slept in."

I grumbled something under my breath about tight asses and smiled when Ayako and Takigawa laughed.

I felt more than a little frumpy in my pink plaid pajama pants and XL t-shirt with Tweedy Bird on the front and frayed edges when I walked into the bright, sparkling dining room. Naru sat at the head looking like the arrogant, handsome CEO he was, even if SPR wasn't a multi-level corporation. The only difference was the newspaper in his hands was yellowed and had a suspicious stain on one corner. He didn't even look up when I walked passed, yawning.

"It's about time you woke up. I need tea." The paper crinkled like candy wrappings as he turned the page.

"Were you seriously waiting till I woke up so I could make you tea? Why couldn't you just ask Lin?" Despite it being winter outside, the sun had warmed the floor-boards and they felt good beneath my bare feet.

"Lin has better things to do then make tea."

"Of course." Or in other words: I was the under-peon and had nothing better to do than make him tea first thing in the morning. Freaking slave driver.

Takigawa picked up on my mood instantly when I slipped besides him in the kitchen where he flipped pancakes on a griddle. I started up a burner next to his and took up the stainless steel teapot to fill it up.

"He waited for you to wake up to have his tea?" said Takigawa, incredulous..

I just grunted in response and switched on the water.

A pancake sizzled as it's wet side slapped against the hot metal. "I guess that could be sweet."

"Sweet?" Had I heard right? "What's so sweet about ordering me to make him tea the moment my eyes are open?"

"He wants tea from his dear sweet Mai." Takigawa grinned. "I think I heard a little bird say that he didn't drink tea at all while he was in London. Do you do anything special to it?"

I blinked. Hard. Water started overflowing from the teapot. "Who told you that?"

"Madoka."

"Liar. We haven't even seen Madoka in ages."

"Correction, _you_ haven't seen Madoka. And you're draining precious clean water there, Mai-chan."

I snapped off the facet and drained out some of the water. I practically shoved on the lid and slapped it onto the hot burner with a hiss of water on fire. "She probably exaggerated. I don't do anything special with that tea, and Naru's already made it plenty clear how he feels about me."

"You sure? What was it he said?"

I ignored that question. "Is something burning?"

He cursed under his breath. Pancakes, after all, did cook awfully fast.

Takigawa loaded me up a plate of pancakes and sausage while I waited for the tea to boil. I preferred eating on the kitchen counter than the dining room anyways.

"Has Naru eaten already?" I asked.

"Yep. Him and Lin were the first to receive of my pancake power." He flipped a Mickey shaped pancake, which had been browned to perfection. "Unlike Ayako, I have a second sense for the griddle."

I grinned and swallowed my bite of syrupy goodness. "You pay an awful lot of attention to Ayako's little screw ups. You sure you don't like her?"

"Nah, she ain't my type. I prefer my women kind, gentle, and not physically abusive."

"Who are you calling physically abusive?"

I had to laugh. Right on cue, Ayako stepped into the kitchen, her wet hair twisted up underneath a towel and dressed in designer jeans and sweater for the day. She had a familiar glower set at Takigawa, who was unfazed.

"Don't give me that look. I got calcium deposits on my head from your fists, and newsflash, normal people don't beat on anyone who pisses them off."

"And news flash, grown men don't usually tease women like ten year old boys and insult them as often as you do." She took up her plate with her shoulders thrown back, as though that could enforce her point. "And don't worry, I prefer gentlemen. Thanks for the cakes."

"I made sure to spit in yours."

"My point exactly."

Just then the pot whistled and I jumped up to pour the water into the waiting mugs. After stirring in the appropriate sugar and cream (Naru had a secret sweet tooth when it came to his teas, but only ever his teas), I slid out to deliver it to my boss.

He had put down the newspaper and was marking something in a notebook when I walked in. The sunlight gleamed on the soft, combed black of his hair, bringing out golden-brown highlights. He glanced up as I set the mug down by the papers.

"Thanks."

"Um…you're welcome." That was weird. "What are you doing anyways?"

"Wondering why someone would keep a box full of old classifieds." He lifted up his mug to breath in the smell of the tea, then put it down to seep more.

I put a finger to my chin. "That is pretty weird. They're pretty much useless after a week, aren't they? They're just local ads for stuff people are selling."

"So why three boxes of them? And carefully ordered by date." He tapped his pen against the table, but said nothing more.

I shifted from foot to foot, wanting to suggest something helpful, but knowing all too well that I'd just end up being annoying or getting insulted if I did.

"Guess I'll go back to my breakfast then."

He stood. "I'll come with you. There's nothing more I can get from these."

In the kitchen, after I seated myself back at the counter where Takigawa and Ayako had sat down, not saying a word to each other, Naru leaned against the counter opposite of us so we could all see him and folded his arms.

"I have reason to believe we are dealing with a neglected Kuman Thong."

Takigawa frowned. "Then that's not so bad. They're just figurines of children people keep in their houses for good luck, don't they? Never heard of one making baby noises."

"That's because those aren't real Kuman Thongs."

That gave both Takigawa and Ayako pause. Naru once more explained what a Kuman Thong was, except in a much shorter speech than he had given me, and then started handing out assignments.

"Ayako, did you finish those charms?"

"It's not like they take me all day, I've just been waiting for you to ask."

"I shouldn't have to ask. Mai, Takigawa, after you receive a charm from Ayako I want Takigawa to head up to the attic with me. Mai, I'm going to need you at the base to keep an eye on the cameras and let us know if you see or hear anything out of the ordinary. Ayako, I'm going to need you to pick up John at the airport. His flight lands at about eleven so you should head out as soon as you finish."

Ayako scoffed. "I'm a priestess, not one of your assistants, stop treating me like I am one."

"Fine. Please pick up John as a favor to me, as I don't have a Japanese driver's license and neither does Mai."

"Ugh! Fine." She dug her fork into the last of her pancakes.

Naru thanked her in the same somewhat awkward manner he had thanked me when I had given him his tea, which he had carried in with him and took a sip out of before saying, "Our goal today is to find the Kuman Thong. I have reason to believe it's in a secret compartment in the attic, but there could be other hidden crannies somewhere else in the house." He paused. "Has anyone heard baby crying since the exorcism last night?"

Ayako and Takigawa raised their hands, both with mirroring grumpy expressions. I stared.

"I didn't hear a thing!" I cried.

"Neither did I," said Naru, thoughtfully. "I don't believe Lin did either, but then again, he was sleeping in the van ."

"In the van?" We all said as one.

"Doesn't he have his own room too?" asked Ayako.

"Yes. Suffice it to say he finds the cries of babies a bit more unpleasant than most."

What was it about baby cries that scared people? Babies were wonderful, beautiful little angels from heaven with soft little hands and gummy smiles. Just thinking about them brought a stupid little smile on my face. Was it the sense of helplessness? The idea of something so vulnerable and designed for love being neglected and tortured?

I shivered at that last thought. Dead babies, cut from their mother's wombs and roasted, then painted with oil from a corpse's chin and gold leaf…

I hoped I wasn't the one to find the Kuman Thong first.


	6. Anticipating Expectation

**Since there's so many people eagerly awaiting this update, here's an extra one! Please excuse any typos or minor mistakes in spelling and grammar, I've been editing all week and that part of my brain is burnt. Hope you like it!**

Chapter 5

My mother had always wanted to have more children. After father died, I remembered she often played with the idea of going out and finding a new husband, though young as I was, I could see she still couldn't let go of the memory of him. Often times, when she remembered him most, she would hold me so close I couldn't see her tears, only feel her shaking behind me. I knew to hold still. It was important that I hold still.

But I had always wanted to twist around and hug her tight. Not because I understood, but because her shaking made me feel like my whole world was about to shake apart with her. Mother had been my world. My entire world, and her grief the earthquake that might shatter it.

How much so could that be with an unborn baby than with a six year old? And what happened when your world was taken away?

I reflected on this as I kept watch on the two rows of monitors before me. The night vision camera didn't mix well with flashlights, and since just about everyone in the attic seemed to have one, I ended up having to depend on the infrared camera instead. The red of their bodies had made me think of the red world of the womb. A heavy, unsettled ache hadn't left since I had had that vision, and while it didn't actively get in my way, it did weigh on my thoughts. Monk had mentioned that I was less chirpy than usual, and I would have shrugged it off if it wasn't for the fact I realized he was right.

I heaved a sigh, hoping to blow some of it out. "Out of all the things we had to get, why couldn't it be hexers or even latent psychics? Yeah, we haven't had a good latent psychic case in a while."

The tiny speaker next to my microphone crackled. " _You left the mic on, Mai_."

If it had been anyone else I would have apologized and switched it off. But since Naru had that lofty, almost inaudible lilt at the end of his tone that told me he was amused, I grabbed a handful of paper nearby and crackled it against the mic.

"What's that? Didn't catch you."

" _I know that's paper_."

Caught in the act, I switched off the microphone and slapped my forehead hard against the table. The sting and ringing in my ears helped my annoyance just a bit. At the same time, a small part of me had been hoping…what? That he'd laugh? Had I been trying to play with him? Course I was. Arrogant narcissist needed a good laugh to get off his high horse.

The speaker crackled again. " _Please care for the brain cells you have by not hitting your head against the desk, please."_

I snapped up and checked the mic. It was off. I asked some questions to the others in it to test it, but sure enough, nothing.

Once again, Naru had lucky guessed me.

I could feel my face heating up. "Damn it, Naru, don't do that to me!" It wasn't like I _wanted_ to stay in love with him, and if he kept showing how much attention he paid me—

A loud cracking of wood buzzed the overly sensitive mics. With a wince I turned down the volume on my headphones.

" _The door's been glued shut, but it's here, as you said,"_ came Lin's voice.

" _I really need to rough arm you into giving me the lottery numbers one of these days,_ " said Takigawa with a low whistle.

" _I'm flattered, but this was quite obvious,"_ said Naru.

" _Wait, are you saying you know the lottery number?"_

" _Nevermind that. Lin, do you see them?"_

After a few seconds pause, Lin said, " _I see boxes or chests of sort, hold on_."

I gripped my elbows, eyes glued to the screen like an episode of _Sherlock_ I had yet to watch. The scary music had yet to play in the background, so that meant any moment now something freaky would happen.

The scrapping of wood against wood filled the headphones as the warm colored blotch of Lin pulled out blue colored boxes. I switched back over to the night vision camera in attempts to get a better look, but, of course, they all had their stupid flashlight beams on it as well. So I switched back just in time to watch orange and red Lin lift a blue lid.

A few more breathless seconds.

" _We found them,"_ he said.

" _So those are actual Kuman Thong? You weren't joking?"_

" _I hardly joke,"_ said Naru's dry voice. " _Monk, spot Lin. Have a ward ready."_

But as the minutes ticked by, and Lin disappeared into the attic wall to pull out box after box, nothing happened. The temperature didn't change, and besides the scrape of wood boxes, nothing strange came over the speakers.

Abruptly, a chill, like a jolt of static, shot up my spine. The unsettled feeling grew and goose bumps prickled along my arms. Biting my lip, I switched on my mic, just in case.

But the boxes made it out of the attic and down into the great hall without a single event. Takigawa didn't move his fingers from their position once as Naru and Lin brought them down the stairs three at a time. Naru stopped me from going to help by telling me to keep my eyes on the screen just as the thought had entered my head to leave. His uncanny ability to predict me was starting to get annoying.

Twelve wooden, latch-lid boxes the size of shoe boxes, all made of the same red cherry wood and set into two rows of six on the floor. I watched through the open door from my seat in front of the monitors. Naru sent a sharp glare at me on catching me watching.

"Monitors," he said.

"You can always rewind," I said irritably. "Besides…"

He paused as he set down the last box. "What?"

"I feel really…on edge, for some reason."

Naru nodded, as though he had expected that, and straightened. "Takigawa, do you think you could get to work on destroying these? John should be here soon to help."

"Wouldn't it do better to get the spirits out first?" said Takigawa. "I mean, John's exorcisms will just expel them, I could very well destroy them."

My knuckles popped my fingers dug into my arms. "Let's wait, Naru."

Naru caught my eye and hesitated, but not long. "Alright."

I relaxed as much as I could. So the babies wouldn't be harmed. That was good. Still, why did I keep expecting something to happen? Maybe because something always did. Obviously nothing had happened yet. Maybe when John exorcised them? But once they didn't have anything to literally tie them down to the world, wouldn't a babys' spirit just pass on right away? Takigawa had said there simply wasn't infant ghosts for that very reason.

Naru ambled in after telling Takigawa and Lin to keep vigil over the Kuman Thongs. He picked up his second cup of tea he had yet to finish and took a sip. I chewed my lip as I peered around him to take another look at the boxes.

"You can go look, if you want," he said over the rim of his cup.

I flinched, as though he had yelled at me. "Won't I get cursed or something?"

"It might actually help you to relax. Uneasiness isn't always caused by supernatural senses, you know. Go take a look. They're just babies."

I gave him my best dry look. Yeah, babies. That's why you set two spiritualists on guard next to them.

He seemed to read my look, for he lowered his mug enough to sigh. "I know better than to leave children unattended, undead or not. Having someone near them is probably all that is needed to keep them calm. Babies are rather dependent on others, as you know."

"Then why'd you make me keep watch at the monitors rather than help you?"

"You're a klutz. Perish the thought you should drop one."

"Perish the thought I should drop you! Man, you are so rude."

"And you are loud. Are you going to go look or not?"

Itching to push him or at least seriously mess up his stupid perfect hair, I marched around him and into the grand hall, where Takigawa watched with a familiar smile. I made to shot him a warning glare, but knew better. It wasn't as though Naru was joking. I was a klutz. Trouble prone, to be precise.

And besides, now that I was finally out of the cozy coven of the parlor, I could feel my unsettled feeling start to ease. Maybe just taking a peek would help. It wasn't like I'd see a dried up baby in there, they were supposed to be covered in gold. If anything they'd probably just look like gold nuggets sitting in a pile of silk.

Lin said nothing as I went up to the first box on the first row, but he watched me through his black bangs from his seat on the stairs.

"They're pretty gnarly," said Takigawa.

And since he said it with the tone of a teenager talking about a freak show exhibit, I didn't pause as I unlatched the unvarnished cherrywood lid.

There was silk and gold, all right. But the thing that had been arranged from within was anything but a nugget. Its head was large, like an alien's, its gold eyes sunken, and thin streams of gold flesh clung to doll size bones. Its arms had been crossed over its chest, and its slightly bowed legs ended with tiny feet had been straightened.

A gold, baby mummy.

I dropped the lid. My heart had jumped to double the speed. A part of me told me to look again, to take a good look to prove to myself that it couldn't harm me, that there was no suffering baby just a preserved corpse, but that wasn't what had a grip on me now, and it wasn't any fool supernatural senses either.

"I don't know what you were thinking," I said, almost beneath my breath for the sudden tightness in my throat. "But that did not help."

Takigawa flinched. "You all right?"

"No, I'm not." And because I knew if I faced Naru now I would not only start screaming but start sobbing as well, I stood up and stiffly stepped past Lin and up the stairs.

How the hell he could think that, after all we had experienced, that seeing a dried up baby would help me feel better…I really hated him.

And as though to nail that in, as my foot met the maroon carpet on the second floor, a disembodied infant started to cry again.


	7. A World, The Womb

**Has anyone yet figured out why I've titled this story Cumin?**

Chapter 6

The pillow over my head was yanked off, and fresh air cooled my snotty, tear-stained face. I felt a sweep of long hair against my wrist.

"Honestly, Mai, have you really been up here since I left?"

I sniffed—ineffectively, and ended up hiding the stream of snot from nose to sheets with my hands. "No."

Ayako handed me a packet of tissues from her pocket and I tore it open. She watched with puckered eyebrows as I unplugged my head plumbing and cleaned up.

"This case is really getting to you, isn't it? Do you have a bad experience with babies or something?"

"For your information, I had the pillow over my head to block out the crying, and a baby crying can get to anyone."

"What crying?"

Sure enough, the moment Ayako had lifted off the pillow, the crying had stopped.

I sniffed again. She clicked her tongue.

"Really, Mai, you need to do something about how invested you get with spirits in our cases, for your own sake if not for ours."

"But," I covered my eyes, more than a little ashamed at being caught in my moment of pure pathetic. "They were just innocent little babies, and they were roasted over a fire and used for—"

"But they were already dead," said Ayako. "They weren't alive to feel the fire. Most of their spirits were probably long gone before they could even be turned into a talisman."

"But then why do we hear crying babies? Babies who were never born never had a chance to cry—or even to know how to."

"Babies don't need to be taught how to cry. They are born instinctively knowing how, just as they can kick and squirm and eat." Ayako gave me a sad little smile. "Stop doing this to yourself, Mai-chan. They are okay. We are okay. And even though he's a sociopathic brat, I'm pretty sure Naru really thought seeing them would help you feel better, so don't hate on him either. It's making him twitchy."

I perked up. "Really?"

Ayako tilted back on my bed to laugh. "That got you up, didn't it?"

I pouted. "You lied to me? Jeeze, don't mess with me like that, like hell he'd care about upsetting me, otherwise he wouldn't do it all the time."

"There's a difference between teasing and actually hurting, even you know that. Now come on, Monk's worried about you, and I think you should see John release the babies. It will help you find some peace. But I mean it, don't get so worked up again. We're supposed to be professionals."

The corner of my mouth twitched and I blew one last time into a tissue. "I take it I'm not supposed to mention how you and Takigawa squabble like children at every case you have together, right?" At the 'I'm-going-to-strangle-you' look I added, "hey, you teased me first, this is fair game."

But I agreed to come down after a quick wash of my face and Ayako left.

Hoping that the cool water had helped with the redness (book characters always washed their face after a good cry, there had to be a reason other than to wash up snot), I had just patted my face dry when a loud shout of pain made me jump.

"Ayako!"

The shout turned to a low, grating scream. I spun out of the bathroom, ice lacing my veins. I could hear the others yelling to each other. The maroon carpet dug up between my toes, as though to suck them into place.

I reached the landing. Ayako had collapsed into herself in the middle of the hall, right before the lines of boxes, her arms in a vice-like grip around her middle.

A puddle of red blood dribbled down around her knees. My legs didn't stop, but my mind remained frozen in horror at the top of the stairs.

 _Blood shouldn't flow that fast._

It was the first time I had seen John in two weeks, and his face had turned pale beneath his golden hair. The tiny bottle of holy water dripped feebly from the stopper of his thumb.

Ayako dropped to her knees, gagging on a fresh scream.

"John! Wake up!"

At Naru's shout, John jumped, eyes wide as coins. He turned from the box he had been facing to Ayako, hand of holy water shaking as the blood around her feet reached across the polished oak boards not covered by the oriental carpet.

"Oh Father, who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name—"

In far too long a time, I reached her, arms going wide to take hold of her—just to be stopped by Naru's arms around my waist.

"Hold it—"

" _She's dying! She's dying!_ "

"Lin, get the car!" Takigawa yelled.

"—thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven—"

" _Naru! Save her, she's dying!_ "

Takigawa flew in to sweep her up in his arms, smearing blood over his long, blue sleeves. Blood dripped a trail from her heels all the way to the door, where the Monk flew out the door Lin had just used, with John hot on his heels, flinging the water in a cross across Ayako.

"—give us this day our daily bread—"

Ayako gave a harsh gasp for breath, so loud I could hear it from within the house. The engine of the van started up with a sleepy growl.

A cold draft blew in to sweep the metallic tinge of blood into my face. There was so much—so much in a neat, shiny puddle. Monk had even somehow managed to avoid stepping in it as he had picked her up.

Naru's arm yanked hard on me, stopping my breath.

"Outside, Mai."

"But the van—they're already gone—"

"Just _get outside, damn it!_ "

I faltered, and in my moment of shock Naru half dragged, half carried me across the threshold. A numb buzzing had filled my head. Naru didn't swear. He just didn't. Nor did he get scared. Ever.

And it didn't stop there. Once out on the gravel he pulled me until we had crossed the elaborate gardens and reached the end of the driveway, where he yanked me up against a large, bare branched elm and switched his vice-like grip to my arms.

" _Never_ lose it like that again and say someone's dying, Mai! You could have made everyone waste precious time in panicking! Lucky for you they kept their heads!"

"S-s-stop yelling—"

"I'll yell if I damn—" he stopped and blinked. The sharp cut to his face that turned his eyes to stone fell and he looked down at his hands on my arms, as though unsure of whose hands they were.

The quiet that followed his release of me crinkled with the snow beneath his feet. Only then did I realize just how pale he had gotten, almost as white as the snow. If he was angry, shouldn't it have been flushed?

With a quick sigh through his nose, he ran a hand through his hair. "Stay put while I go get a phone. You are not to step a foot into the house."

"But what about you?"

"I'll be fine."

"You always say that—"

"I don't have a uterus," he said bluntly. "No ghost fetus will know what to do with a man's body."

I could feel my face go slack. "You mean Ayako…"

"Don't jump to conclusions—"

"You obviously are! And don't you dare give me your 'I'm smart' excuse!"

"Fine. I don't want you near those things and I don't want you staying out here without a coat, happy? I also thought you'd prefer to keep in touch with the others."

"Don't put it like that, you want to keep in touch with them too!"

"I thought that was a given."

"It was! But your passive aggressive act is pissing me off!"

"Mai," he took a step in—closing off the little space left between us and put his hands to either side of my face. The intimacy of the touch would have startled me if not for his words. "Calm down. Everything's okay."

"No it's not okay! Naru, she's dying." My voice cracked like a twig underfoot. "S-s-she's dying. So m-m-much blood." I didn't know human beings even had that much blood in them, let alone be able to bleed that much through jeans within seconds without their guts following after.

"We don't know that, now breathe with me. Your pupils are dilating too quickly. In, out, in-"

"What's that suppose to me—"

"It means you're having an intense panic attack," he said. "Now breathe with me or you're going to…"

Whatever he meant to say got swallowed up in a dark tunnel from nowhere.


	8. Within Walls

**Wrong. All your guesses. Though they're actually a lot smarter than the real reason.**

 **I named it Cumin because it sounds like Kuman. . I do that with all my Ghost Hunt horrors: name the book after what the name of the ghost sounds like. For example, I wrote a story about an Acheri, so I called the book Cherry. There was another ghost called a Reverant, so I called the book Reverent. I also wrote one with a ghost called a Draugr, so I called the book Dragger.**

 **I'm painfully simple like that.**

Chapter 7

Somewhere, a baby was wailing.

My body moved sluggishly, almost after the thought, and my vision was clouded by the darkness. I could just make out the walls of the mansion's second floor. But the compassionate aching of my heart tugged me forward relentlessly. I couldn't take it anymore. Someone had to do something—someone had to help.

"I'm coming, baby." The walls wobbled. The outline of a door pressed through the black. "It's okay, I'm coming."

The baby's crying rose to a pleading pitch. It couldn't have been little more than a newborn. I had heard such when helping my kind teacher with her own child while I lived with her. It still had that warbling sound that came when crying took the effort of one's entire body.

A hand wrapped tight around my wrist. I had to swing my heavy head around to see who it was, and at first I thought I saw Naru.

But then I blinked, and my vision abruptly cleared. His lips moved.

 _'_ _Don't.'_

Gene. His eyes were younger, less sharp, and the lines of his face were less pronounced since he didn't frown nearly as much as his brother.

I shook my head. "I can't let this go on. Please, I can't stand it, my heart is breaking."

His own expression melted into one I knew would never grace Naru's face: pitying and empathetic. And I knew then that Gene felt every bit the same way I did.

Still, he shook his head.

 _'_ _There's nothing you can do. Look this way.'_

He tugged me forward, and as though a rug had been tugged out from beneath me, I tipped forward. My heavy arms wouldn't make it in time to catch me, and I thought for sure I was about to faceplant into Gene's shoes.

But then, in a mind bending switch, the fall stopped and I was on my feet once more in a much brighter, clearer mansion. The twelve little boxes still stood in their rows, and the patch of Ayako's blood gleamed such a bright red, I could have mistook it for a mess of ketchup or melted crayon.

Gene kept his grip on my wrist as he pointed towards the base, and as I followed his finger the walls cleared. Instead of the usual furniture and monitors, my view was blocked by the brilliant shine of symbols I couldn't quite make out.

 _'_ _There's a barrier against the dead set within those walls. That's why you and Noll didn't hear the cries the night you slept there.'_

"I guess that means you haven't been able to go in there either, huh?"

He gave me a soft, somewhat wan smile that faded far quicker than normal. His arm swept before my view once more, this time pointing to the opposite end of the mansion. Once more the walls faded before my seeking eyes till they stopped at a utilities closet, larger than any I had seen. It housed an extra large water heater, a fuse box, what could have been an electric heater, and a sink.

But, unlike the rest of the brightened, almost cartoon colored house, this room appeared dark, solemnly colored, and blurred. I rubbed my eyes hard and looked again, but it made no difference.

More of the same symbols were here as well, but smaller, and such a dark red I could barely make them out. An especially large one, something like Sanskrit, took up the majority of the floor.

' _Do you see the foxfire?'_

At first I didn't. All I could see was the dingy, dark closet. But then, against the ugly bland turquoise of the heater, I could see the wavering edges of what looked to be a violet-blue fire simmering in the corner next to the sink. It burned as thought through a slow mo film.

' _Best you stay away from that unless you have protection. Oh, and Mai?'_

I turned to his gaze. In that moment a Naru-like smirk spread across his features and he became completely identical to his twin.

' _Remember_ _Karma is a bitch.'_

 **Do much moaning and gnashing of teeth and I'll have chapter 8 up this evening. ^.^ Make it good, folks, I want some misery to cackle at (and chapter 8 is super long too } )**


	9. Guilt

**Oh, come on, that's the best moaning and wailing reviews you can give me? I wanted to hear, like, 'you see those guts, Lowe? You see that blood? You did it with your bare, glittery fingernails and now I'm bleeding to death.'**

 **...just for fun, I'm actually not that macabre...much.**

 **Anyhoo, here's the next chapter. And, no, for once it isn't Mai who wanders into places she shouldn't. That, my friends, would be unoriginal.**

Chapter 8

I came to with a start by the cold touch of snow against my neck. Naru had a hand on the back of my head, holding it up, and soon the cold snow was replaced by something warm being stuffed in-between. I glanced down as Naru righted me into a sitting position against the tree and found myself wrapped tight in wool blankets with a rain coat serving as a shield between me and the snow.

Naru reached into his coat and pulled out a grungy scarf, which he unceremoniously plopped onto my head.

"Sad. I was hoping you'd stay unconscious. You're a lot quieter and a lot less trouble, then."

I blinked at Naru, trying to get over the black fuzzy earmuffs he had on his head. Then it clicked. "You went into the house?"

"And came out fine." He tucked his gloved hands into his pockets and leaned against the tree besides me. I looked up at him, then back down to the warm cocoon he had wrapped me up in. It took a bit of awkward squirming to release an arm to wrap the scarf about my neck.

"Thanks for…keeping me warm." I wiggled my buried toes. "Any news on Ayako?"

"Nope."

"Um…"

"What?"

"I, uh, had one of those dreams."

"And I'm sure you're about to tell me about it." He hesitated. "Was Gene there?"

"Yeah! He, um, pointed out that the sitting room that we've set up base is warded against spirits. Someone built symbols of some sort into the walls. That's why whenever we're in there we haven't heard the baby cries."

He closed his eyes and nodded. "I had a theory about that."

I went on to tell him about the utility closet, as well as the somewhat lackluster foxfire within. When I mentioned Gene's reminder (Karma is a bitch), Naru barked a short, loud laugh that caught me off guard.

"That's him." He pushed off the tree. "Is that it?"

"Um, pretty much."

"Did you see any foxfires in the boxes?"

"Not really—though the area around them was really bright and colorful. Ayako's blood looked like…"

"I get the idea." He tapped his shoe in the snow, looking back at the huge house, with its Annabelle columns and carefully pruned evergreen bushes. "So there's something else here besides the Kuman."

"Every time I hear that I can't help but think about cumin. You know, the spice?"

He didn't respond, still tapping his shoe in the snow. He had a look I knew all too well: of sharp concentration. Then he seemed to decide something within himself and turned to me.

"I'm going to go in and open one of the outside windows to the base so you can climb in."

I thought that a little extreme. "What are you so afraid of?"

"I don't get afraid." He said dryly.

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, Vulcan, you have a theory on what happened to Ayako and it somehow has to do with me. Care to share?"

"I thought it was obvious." Everything was obvious to him. To Naru he was but a step down from omniscience. "When the spirit of the baby was released from its body, it went to the only place it new: the womb. What transpired between it and Ayako I can't be sure, and as far as I'm concerned John only released one so far, but I'd like to play it safe."

Especially given that we didn't know just how close to death Ayako was.

I shivered and wrapped my arms around me. He spared me a glance, but after seeing what he must have wanted to see, he gestured me to the side of the house and went in to open the window. Picking up the rain coat he had used to separate me from the snow, I hitched up the blankets he had put over me and set out on my merry way across the snow packed yard. It took a lot longer to get to the window than I would have liked, and by the time I made it my legs had gone numb from the knee down and the air in my lungs hurt.

He was waiting for me and opened the window. Once he found out just how lame numb and frozen legs are in giving sufficient leverage into a window, he sighed, got a better hold on my upper arms, and pulled hard.

I must have been lighter than he expected, because I came shooting over the window ledge. He stumbled back, his heel caught on the edge of the carpet, and we went down in a fwoomp of blankets.

The warmth and feel of his body against my own slim shivering one stunned me stupid. While my brain commanded me to get the freak off of my boss, my body went deaf.

I never knew a man…could feel like this. And so warm.

"Mai, you're crushing me."

Since my knees had gone out of commission, I pushed and let myself roll onto my back on the floor. I wasn't blushing. I was too stunned too.

The ceiling had elaborate, square molding, carved of varying dark and the usual golden oak. I could smell the pine of the cleaner and something flowery in the carpet.

Naru closed the window. Without a word he picked up the snow covered blankets and flung them over the coffee table. The door leading into the entrance hall had been closed tight, and I could hear the quiet whirring of the computers' CPU.

When I continued to lay there, admiring the ceiling I'd never bothered to notice, Naru reappeared in my vision, looking down at me with something close to his usual smirk.

"What, are you hoping against hope that I'll kiss you?"

There was the blush. "Wh-wha—are you kidding me! Can't I just lay here in peace for a moment? It's not like you need me to do anything."

"You could feed the fire, it's gotten rather small in our absence."

"You feed the fire, you freaking narcissist."

He sighed. "Well, seems you're fine then. Guess I don't have to worry about your psychological state."

I stared at his back as he made his way to the fire and proceeded to throw in logs. He had been worried about me?

Of course that gave me that weird, fuzzy little warmth you get in your stomach. Probably had some idiotic smile on my face as well.

Once he had fed the fire, he sat down at the monitors and rewound the tapes to see if anything had happened while we had been out. I sat up and proceeded to peel off my wet shoes and socks, and on finding my pants also soaked and freezing, I groaned.

"Any chance I could convince you to get me a dry pair of pants from my room?"

"A little busy," he muttered. He had stopped at one frame and was leaning down under the table to pull out another case, in which he took out the instrument I remembered Lin using back with the Urado case to look behind the plaster of the walls. He punctuated his 'busy' with the click of the power switch.

There you go, that's a gentleman for you. "Then don't turn around. I'm taking off my pants and wrapping a blanket around me."

"Sure."

To say I had hoped he would respond in a fashion more fit for a teenage boy when told by a girl that she was about to strip behind him would be an understatement. I almost wanted to go full out naked just to get a reaction from him of any kind, but dignity and knowing he'd probably just glare and say I had reached a new level of moron got in the way.

I managed to peel off my wet pants in a timely fashion. As I reached for the throw blanket on the back of the couch, I noticed my book and inwardly smiled with relief. So I wouldn't be stuck without anything to do here. I nearly had a heart attack when Naru got up, wall scanner-thing in hand, but his head didn't so much flinch in my direction as he put it to the nearest wall.

The throw blanket was blessedly dry and warm and I made myself a nice little skirt from it. After scanning his one wall, he went back to the computer and clicked about for a bit, leaving the scanner to hum away next to him.

"I'm going to go check out the closet on the second floor." The chair's rubber feet squeaked a bit as he stood. "Stay here."

I dropped my book in surprise. "Are you stupid? Gene said not to go there without protection, and if I recall, you're _not_ a spiritualist! Can't you just wait until Monk or John get back?"

"I'll be fine. I still have one of Ayako's charms."

"Yeah, like that helps so much against anything besides possessions." I almost threw down my book. So much for a nice escape from freaked out reality. "If you're going, I'm going too."

His gaze went sharp as a knife. "No."

"What you going to do? Karate chop me?"

"I'll lock you in."

"And I'll go out the window and around."

"Real mature, Mai. I'm just going to glance inside. We don't have any cameras or sensors there."

I clenched my fists against the half-born yell in my mouth. I nearly released it, when a sudden spurt of intuition hit me in the stomach. I had been so caught up in how I was reacting to Ayako's accident that I had yet to see how Naru was. She was still his friend, not to mention, in a way, his responsibility. Was it possible he blamed himself for what had happened to her? Even if he had no way of foreseeing it, it would be just like Naru to expect that he should have foreseen it anyways.

He started towards the door, having grabbed a thermal camera and the same wall scanner.

"I'm serious, Naru, I will follow you!"

"Fine," he snapped, his mood changing so quickly I jumped. "Put all my efforts to keeping you safe to waste, don't you dare haunt me if you die."

And with that, he marched out the doorway and through the rows of boxed Kuman Thongs like a visitor moving through graveyard tombstones.


	10. The Torture of Compassion

**Make sure to read this at night, with all the lights turned off, and nobody home.**

Chapter 9

Like I was going to let him guilt me into doing what he wanted. Once the sting of his snap vanished, the fury at his ever present inability to show empathy for other people's feelings sent me after him at a run. Against all his high and mighty beliefs, I did not explode into a smear of blood and flesh the moment I stepped out of the parlor, nor did I collapse with seizures of psychochemical dreams.

"Have you forgotten all the people who care about what happens to you?" I took the steps two at a time to catch up to him. His irritation made his strides long and swift. When he said nothing, I snapped my teeth together. "Damn it, Naru, what happened to Ayako isn't your fault!"

"Shows your naivety about the responsibilities that come with authority."

Ah, so I'd been right. Despite the overwhelming urge to punch him over the head, I did smile at that.

Even so, I knew it'd be a waste to try and convince him otherwise. Naru may call me stubborn, but he made me look compliant as grass when he thought he was in the right.

A wave of cold, like I had stepped through a thin membrane of water that stretched over the hall like a wall, ruptured my skin in goose bumps. I involuntarily slowed as we neared the utility closet at the end of the hall.

"The placement of this closet is strange," he said, probably just to himself. "Utility closets are usually on the first floor, aren't they?"

"There's more bathrooms up here," I said.

"That shouldn't make any difference."

The afternoon sunlight pouring in from the window at the end of the hall shone dully off his black shoes. He always wore black shoes.

"For the last time, Mai, go back to the base, or I'm firing you after this."

That did give me pause, and I hesitated. Then I thought about living with the regret if something _did_ happen to Naru.

"I can at least do the nine cuts," I said. "So shove it. Besides, nothing's happened to me so far, and I'm sure the maids have opened this place up plenty of times."

I wasn't so sure of that, but Naru didn't look at me as he stopped at the last door. Without a word, he adjusted the second case to his other hand and reached for the doorknob. Before I could reconsider giving him one over the head and dragging him back by force, the door was open, and another wave of damp, cold air whooshed over me. It smelled of fresh plaster and warm metal.

Once again I found myself in a world of dark-red and heartbeat. I opened a useless mouth and clenched alien fists—

And Naru returned me to the world with a flick of the light switch. The walls had been painted a plain white and the floor was the same oak paneling. The dark blue green heater, water heater, fuse box, and sink were just as I saw them. No symbols glowed off the wall, and though there was a surprising amount of space on the floor, I couldn't see the wide circle I had seen fitting there.

He stepped in and set down the case of sensors. I bit my lip and stepped in to help him with the tripod, to which he didn't stop me. After pushing the camera into the corner adjacent to the door and adjusting it roughly, he moved to the sensors.

The light flicked off. Despite that, I didn't grow alarm. The sunlight from the hallway still lit up the room well enough.

"Classic," he muttered, as though the darkness amused him.

I wanted to kick him. I should have.

Because right after he said that, the door slammed closed behind him of its own free will. Impenetrable darkness closed in on us like a heavy blanket. No light seeped in through the cracks around the door, and the small lights of the heater gave off no glow.

"Damn it, Naru, I told you!"

"This probably wouldn't have happened if you hadn't come with me."

"Oh, shut up!"

Something heavy rammed into my stomach. I choked and crumpled. Pain bled into the corner of my eyes with tears, but besides the vague sense of bruising and having the wind knocked out of me, I thought I was okay.

"Mai? Mai!" His voice had gone wiry and high.

"I'm fine. Something just hit me."

Hands on my shoulders. Somewhere besides me, a baby started to cry horrible, desperate wails, as though it's skin burned and every breath was vile.

I slapped my hands over my ears, pulled away from the hands, and hit the sink like a tank. Pain blossomed over my right hip and I could feel the tears down my face. Naru shouted something, but all I could hear was the baby, that poor little baby.

I couldn't—I couldn't. I had to find it, had to bring it out.

Through the darkness I reached to where I heard it, felt out towards the noise, whimpering for it, begging for it.

Something wet, warm, and squirming was pushed into my hands. The crying came from it. Without a thought I pressed the loaf sized body close to my chest, sobbing, hushing, bouncing it up and down.

Little hands twisted up against my breasts. Wet, tiny knobs of hands.

"Mai!"

And somehow, suddenly, I could see. Not through the darkness, but rather despite the darkness. My T-shirt had been smeared with blood from the infant in my hands, though through my fingers I could see more blood. The crying from it had fallen to a whimper as its tiny fists met the warmth of my skin. Though something screamed in my head not to, I pulled it back far enough to get a good look.

Skinless. Raw. Malformed. Eyeless. Just an angry, formless mouth opening and closing in a glob of a head.

The little fists had no fingers, but they squeezed my skin like bending paddles.

It let loose a piercing shriek.

"MAI!"

The infant—the _thing_ —was yanked from my grasp. Darkness closed in on me again. Naru's heavy breathing met my ears, but a split-second later I realized it was me gasping for breath. My lungs were fighting to work right in a body fighting against them. I stumbled for the sink as my stomach jumped into my throat.

When the heaving stopped, the porcelain of the sink had numbed my fingers. I could feel hands at my back again, but this time I knew for certain they were Naru's, as they fluttered from spot to spot and once more he repeated my name.

The dark remained, but a thin stream of sunlight made its way from beneath the door, filtered by strands of carpet.

I fumbled for the facet and turned on the water. The sound of it hitting the sink and washing away the sick helped bring me back to reality. Whatever had attacked me hadn't left, but it had backed away, somehow seeming just as sick and hollow as me.

My hands shook horribly as I washed out my mouth.

"Damnit, Mai, answer me! I can smell the blood!"

I spat out the water. "It's okay, I don't think it's me."

"Like hell!"

He was scared again. The fearless Naru, scared. Somehow that made it all a little better.

"Where's the baby?" I asked.

"What baby?"

"The one—the thing you took away from me. Didn't you hear it?"

"All I heard was you losing it, I didn't take anything from you, though there's definitely someone here that doesn't want me in on whatever is happening."

"How perceptive," I said dryly. Without warning my knees gave way beneath me, but it was about time anyways. I couldn't see myself ever walking ever again.

Naru followed after me. "Where are you hurt?"

"Not really, just winded."

"Wait, I'll open the door. Shock can cover the pain."

His feet broke the long, thin bar of light. The door knob rattled, but the door didn't move. More rattling, then Naru cursed.

I thought I could hear that…thing start crying again and slapped my hands so hard to my ears I nearly knocked myself out. I choked on my own sob, shaking, shaking, shaking—

Warm, familiar hands pulled mine away.

"Mai, I'm right here, try to breathe."

"I can hear it! It's coming back!"

"It's okay, I won't let anything touch you."

But what could Naru do? As I had said in the hallway, he wasn't a spiritualist.

My insides started to hurt with the force of my tremors. I couldn't breathe. I _couldn't breathe._

A raw glob of human tissue for a head. That formless, gaping mouth, crying, begging for relief, begging to be fixed. But it was beyond help—it shouldn't even be alive.

The spot on my chest where its paddle-like hands had twisted started to burn.

And then I could smell the blood too.

Naru's arms tightened around me. In a blink I was encompassed by his warmth, and his sage and tea musk overcame the smell of blood. He hunched over me, almost as though to cover as much as my own body with his.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

I was more than happy to bury my face into the curve of where his shoulder met his neck. Somehow having my mouth and nose flushed up against his shirt made it easier to breathe than when they were clear. It was almost as though Naru himself became air.

One of his warm hands left my side to cover my ear firmly. His cheek slid past my hair to level his lips against my other ear.

And then, more surprising than the ghost attacks, more surprising than Ayako's collapse, Naru started to sing.

Despite being talented in just about everything, Naru was not a star singer. His quiet singing reflected him in that it was precise, in tune, and strictly trained, but he hadn't a drop of natural talent. And yet, with each carefully pronounced word, I could feel warmth being dollop back into my numb body, and the baby became harder to hear.

" _You've got a fast car, I want a ticket to anywhere, maybe we make a deal. Maybe together we can get somewhere, any place is better. Starting from zero we got nothing to lose, maybe we'll make something. Me, myself, I got nothing to prove."_

What kind of song was this? It was the farthest thing from Naru—he had everything to prove. He didn't need anyone to get where he wanted to go. Not to mention there was no way he was starting from zero.

But my world was steadying. His body continued to give me air. His low voice continued to thrum lyrics about a fast car, about starting from nothing, struggling, and yet making it through. Images of someone living in the slums came to my mind—a story of somebody else, far away and totally unconnected to what was happening. His warmth brought my fluttering heart back down to earth.

 _"You've got a fast car, won't have to drive too far. Just 'cross the border and into the city, you and I can both get jobs, finally see what it means to be living._

 _You've got a fast car…."_


	11. Just Afraid

Chapter 10

"Ayako's in a bad state, but they managed to stop the bleeding. If we had been just a second too slow…"

"I will understand if you choose not to work with SPR after this, but I must ask your cooperation at least until John has exorcised the rest of the Kuman."

"Don't stress it, Naru, I'm not going anywhere, especially after what's happened while I was gone. You're my friend too, you know."

"I doubt this particular spirit cares about men. During the whole thing I was practically invisible." A pause. "Besides, this was my fault."

"Your fault? What, did you moon the spirit and dare it to come out?"

"…Takigawa."

"Jeeze, not even a smile?"

"If that's all, you can head back to the house. I've told John to wait until Lin or you meet up with him before getting started."

"Aren't you coming back?"

"I will once she wakes up. I'd like to not test her mental endurance further than I have to by letting her wake up in a hospital not knowing how she got there."

"Yeah, okay. I'll call when we're done."

"Thanks."

A squeak of hydraulic door hinge. A click of a latch.

And just as my consciousness had begun, so did my vision. I blinked at the off-white, industrial paneled ceiling. A random memory of throwing pencils at a ceiling much like this one in middle school floated down to me. We had made it a game to see if we could get the pencils to stick, and the teacher couldn't find the extra effort to care.

I turned my head to find Naru on a chair against the wall, one leg over the other, and a book in his hand. His default pose. As though sensing my gaze, he looked up.

"Hello," he said.

I turned back to the ceiling. A weird buzzing had filled my head and I lifted a hand to it. "What happened?"

"Lin helped me break down the door and took us to the hospital. Even though there didn't seem to be anything necessarily wrong with you, your shirt was covered in blood, and it's always better to play it safe. I don't look forward to the paperwork involved in paying the client for repairs on the door frame."

I sighed. "Well, I'm sorry, but was I right or was I right?"

His book snapped closed. "It wouldn't have happened if you had followed me. If you heard the conversation between myself and Takigawa, the ghost completely ignored me, as I figured it would."

"Oh shut up, you didn't know that. You were just upset about Ayako and got the stupid idea of solving the case by yourself before anyone else could get involved."

When he didn't say anything, I inwardly congratulated myself about being right. Naru, after all, did not lie…to my knowledge.

My smirk melted when an awkward silence fell in place like a sack of potatoes. The clock ticked on and I found my arms to sit up and examine myself through the hospital gown. Besides the IV in my arm, nothing seemed off, besides the two little bruises just above my breasts.

"How's Ayako?" I asked. "I heard she was okay."

"She's in the room next door," he said, having opened up his book again. "Her uterus had somehow ruptured and caused severe internal bleeding. She'll be on bed rest for a while, but should be okay. You can visit her before heading home."

I prickled with anger, then wilted. Of course. Home. He had said he'd fire me if I followed him into that closet. And since SPR paid for any injuries occurred on the job, my hospital bill was on his tab. Not to mention that I had just straight out ignored his direct order.

I twisted the knitted blanket between my fingers. "You okay?"

"Perfectly fine." He turned a page. "Albeit annoyed."

I clenched the blanket. "Well, I'm sorry, but it's not like I enjoy throwing up or holding disfigured, burned up babies—"

The book snapped closed again. "What did you say?"

I frowned. "I don't like throwing up?"

"No, about holding a burnt baby."

"Uh, I don't enjoy holding disfigured, burned up babies? Though I don't know if it was burned up…I couldn't even really call it a baby." I shuddered and begun efforts to beat the memory from my mind.

Eyebrows furrowed in thought, he stood and came over to sit on my bedside. Prickles flew up my skin at his proximity, and close to exploded when he reached out to pull aside the flimsy hospital gown to get a better look at the bruises.

"Is this from it?"

Why oh why did his fingertips have to brush my skin like that, why?! And why did I suddenly want them to go lower and -"I-it sort of, um, twisted up its hands there, though they didn't have any, uh, fingers…could you back off?"

The corner of his mouth lifted into the tiniest of smirks. "Oh please, this is on a completely professional base." He poked one of the bruises. "No fingers, that would explain the shape. Neither I nor the doctor could make head or tails of them, but since you said you held some sort of apparition-"

I slapped away his hand harder than I meant to, and he stared.

"Don't touch me. Please."

His ocean blue eyes studied mine. "Are you feeling alright?"

"I'm feeling like my personal space is being invaded." Heat ran up to my face as I pushed out what I thought I needed to. "Rejecting someone doesn't make said feelings go away on demand, it takes time, and getting so close doesn't help. Don't—don't hug me or touch me or—just go away."

I was mortified. Halfway through speaking I had changed my mind. All that didn't need to be said. He really had been just observing the bruises on a professional level, and just because they were on the top of my breasts didn't mean anything. It wasn't like he saw anything or thought I was attractive.

He withdrew his hand. "You're mistaken."

Brain flop. "Eh?"

"Forget it," he stood up. "I'll go sign your papers. There's a change of clothes on the table for you."

"No, hold on, what do you mean I'm mistaken? You think I'm mistaken for being uncomfortable?" Idiot, of course that's what he meant.

But he just gave me one of his haughty, handsome looks to the side. "Just how idiotic are you, Mai? Just because I look like him doesn't mean I am him, so you have no reason to be uncomfortable."

I blanched. "Him?" Then like an anvil to the face- "Aw hell, you think I—" Fury burst in like lightning. "You think I can't tell the difference between your dead brother and you?" I wanted to throw something at him. Heck, I wanted to throw _him_. "Just how shallow do you think I am!? That's it, get out, I've had enough of your royal heartlessness, just get out!"

And he did. It was another one of Naru's defaults, you see: the silent, cool retreat, often with the excuse of needing to get to work or escape the nauseating stench of stupid in the room.

Why did I like this guy?

Because he wasn't always a jerk, that much was true. Despite the outward appearance of aloof arrogance and coldness, Naru was surprisingly compassionate and concerned about the wellbeing of his friends and others. Not that he'd ever admit to it.

As I shoved on the underwear and clothes that must have been bought brand new nearby due to lack of access to the house (the bra was a simple sports bra, so I didn't have to worry about much), I wondered if his lack of admittance meant it didn't exist. That is, if I wanted to hold up his trait of honesty.

Naru came in without knocking as I was searching through the drawers and cubbies for some kind of comb. He had a tray holding a bottle of milk and a sandwich in hand, which he handed out to me. I took it without looking at him and went to sit down on the other side of the room from his book and chair.

He sat down and continued to read without a word. It served to piss me off even more, because, of course, he was going to go and act like nothing had happened. Like he'd ever respond to my clarification that it was HIM I was in love with.

But, then, what did I expect him to do? Confess his love too? Unlikely. Knowing Naru he ahd put as little thought as possible into the subject of romance between me and him and had shrugged aside my infatuation as having to do with his much friendlier brother so he could have an even bigger excuse to filing it away in the back of the drawer. He didn't like me and never would. He hadn't even thought enough about it to figure out how he was going to reject me, because that would be a waste of time.

I paused in my furious chewing and looked down at the half-eaten sandwich I didn't remember eating in thought. I swirled my milk a bit in the other hand.

Why couldn't I sign off Naru like he did me? Why did my heart go and fall for someone like him? What was so wonderful about romance anyways if this is where it got most people?

Maybe it was a good thing he was sending me home…yeah—YEAH! That's right, he was firing me! Sucks to be out of an awesome job, but the rest of SPR would still be friends with me. I could find a new job, or maybe just grab a camera, sell my apartment, and go on a hunt cross country with Ayako to find the top hottest guys and then make a living off of all the viewers who'd salivate over my Youtube videos.

Yeah…yeah! Screw Naru! Screw the world! Screw love! From now on I'm going to be a shameless professional hunter of the natural beauty of men! Or better yet, I could become a nun! Or a priestess!

I could just see it now—my mighty thumb, shoving down the pushpin of men deeper and deeper into unyielding, tacky drywall, laughing maniacally.

"Feeling better?"

Naru was watching me, his book forgotten. I smiled, shrugged, and downed the rest of my milk.

"Guess you're right about me," I said, licking my lips. "Get mad, get sad, get glad, yep. I'm just one bad ziplock bag commercial."

"Good," he said, leaning onto his elbow with a fist to his jaw. "Means we can talk."

"What 'bout? What happened in the utility closet?"

"Later, yes." He hesitated. "Mai, I don't do romance."

That caught me off guard. "Meaning you're bad at it or that you're, like, asexual? You know, not attracted to anyone or—"

"I know the urban definition," he said dryly, not amused, even insulted. "No, I'm attracted to women just as much as the next man, despite what you or the others may think. I'm…inexperienced."

I snorted. "I find that highly doubtful. You toot your horn of attractiveness more than enough."

"So you think I'm shallow enough to take whatever attractive girl I can draw in?" His dry scowl had grown deeper. "I'm not interested in deciphering the various whimsical infatuations of women and their intentions, whether for good or bad. It's just a demonstration in the one's ability to manipulate another and too many ways that it could just waste my time. So, like I said, I don't _do_ romance."

My mind was drawing a blank. Maybe I really was stupid. But then it clicked. "You're afraid?"

Oh yeah, he didn't like that. "I didn't say that."

"You said you didn't want to try and separate affection from true love, or even when someone is just using you. You're afraid of getting hurt—"

"No," he growled, and in the bland white hospital light I could see him ducking his chin down to duck his gaze behind his bangs. "Forget I said anything. You're obviously too stupid to understand. Are you ready to go yet?"

But I had already stood up, grinning, and going through another upsurge of courage. My feet felt a bit light as I carefully ambled my way towards him, hands tucked behind my back.

"Almost. Just let me gather my bearings and…maybe bother you a bit more."

Just as he looked up to growl some other grumpy negative at me, the toes of my sneakers hit against the shine of his professional old man shoes. I untwined my hands to reach for him, catching the flash of crinkling skin as his eyes narrowed with confusion.

"Maybe bother you a lot," I whispered.

And still somewhat high on my 'screw the world' epiphany, I twined a hand into his dark hair at the nape of his neck, as I'd always dreamed of doing, and bent my lips down to his.

 **Oh! If you got a chance to read my published book, Out of Duat, please leave a review on Amazon. It would help super tons, like, obese tons.**


	12. Back to Business

**If any of you can guess the anime I'm watching right now, I'll update the next chapter early. Hint: purple and white.**

Chapter 11

Turns out, while I had been out, daylight had died and a raging snow storm replaced it. Outgoing flights for that evening had been canceled, meaning no flight home for me, and since Naru drove back to the house like a zombie rather than the bus stop like he said, I figured he had listened to me when I told him that, as long as I was at base, under the protection of the seals put there before, nothing would happen to me.

I just about laughed out loud when, after I got out, Naru just turned off the car and sat there. He only got out after I knocked on the roof and asked if he was planning on sleeping in there. The zombie act continued up to the front door, which was answered by a solemn Lin. He gave Naru a glance before letting us in.

It got harder to hold in the laugh when Takigawa and John converged on us and Naru just walked through them. The boys shrugged it off as him being him, since he went straight to the monitors, but Lin got the most incredulous look on his face.

"What's so funny?" Monk asked, then he glanced behind him to where base was. John did as well.

"Nothing," I said lightly. "Aren't you going to ask about my welfare and visions and all that?"

"Well you look obviously better," said John. "Not that you looked that bad before! Just pale and, um, not awake."

A subtle crash and a curse came from the base. Lin strode past us and into the parlor.

I couldn't help it. A snort escaped me, which brought the attention of the spiritualists back to me. Monk looked both amused and baffled, while John pressed his lips in concern.

"What did you do to him, Mai?"

Like I was going to tell him that back in that white-washed hospital room, the moment my lips had touched his, his mouth had dropped open in surprise. Thinking I might as well destroy myself and get as much out of it as I could, I had taken advantage of his slack jaw to deepen the kiss, even going as far as to lean a knee on the chair besides his thigh. Eventually the scientist woke up and breathed in from my mouth as though suddenly starving and wrung his arms around my waist. I could feel him pressing to kiss back, though it became more than obvious that he had never done so before and ended up kissing my teeth once, which was when he had recoiled.

But his body heat drove me nigh wild, and I held on to teach him, with lip against lip, stroking his face, his neck, his hair, trying to calm his embarrassment and convey that I really did love him—that it was okay if he screwed up—that it was okay that he wasn't brilliant at everything he did. I pulled myself closer, desperate for that response in him, nearly crying for the touch of hope and need for his love. I ended up halfway straddling him with one foot touching the floor and my chest pressed down to him. His fingers twisted up into the back of my shirt, and his breath shook across my lips and tongue.

He was breathing heavily when I pulled away, more heavily than I thought a fumbling first make out session should have been.

"I'm stupid," he gasped. "You're right."

The apocalypse must be coming. Not only did Naru say that while looking up at me with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, but he still had his hands tight on my back.

I barked a laugh and tilted my head to the side. "Right about what?"

"Everything. Right." His hands were shaking again. "Wh-what?"

"Are you okay?"

He blinked. Then he slowly unfurled his hands from my shirt, face twisting in something like consternation. "Yes."

"Do you love me?"

At that question he scowled, successfully bringing him back to the normal Naru that I knew. "What, do you think I just kiss girls for fun?"

I snorted. "You've never kissed a girl."

Red blossomed across his nose. Oh gosh, this really must be the end of the world. I had never seen Naru blush before.

But though he averted my eyes and had become clearly uncomfortable, he didn't push me off. He did let me straighten, though I kept my hands on his armrests and my knee besides his.

"I love you, Oliver. Or Kazuya, or Noll, or my personal favorite, Naru." I smiled. "And I'm quite done being the pathetic girl waiting for you to acknowledge me. I won't stop loving you. Deal with it."

Which brought us to our current situation, with Naru trying his best to hide away from the world and me smiling like an idiot. He hadn't refused me, and it was more than obvious that my kiss wasn't just swapping spit to him.

But to Takigawa's question. "I haven't done anything to him." Another clack from the parlor as something that sounded like a tower of books being knocked to the floor. "But forget that, how did the exorcisms go?"

"As smooth as they could go," he said, still giving me an odd look. "John exorcised them and I backed him up by destroying the Kumen. Probably have a small fortune in gold in all that ash and bones in the back yard."

"How do you feel about exorcizing necromancers?"

Naru had appeared in the doorway, a handful of familiar old newspapers in one hand. He sent a very hard, pointed look at me, and I rolled my eyes, but side stepped John and Monk to get into the parlor. Naru and I did have a deal, after all. I could stay the last night as long as I stayed in the spiritually protected zone.

No sooner had I stepped through the doorway, my skin prickled with a rise in temperature and the impression that I had walked under shelter during a rain storm. I smothered down the temptation to touch him as I passed, though the new twitchy Naru was the most hilarious thing I had and probably would ever see.

"Necromancers?" said John hesitantly. "Do those even exist?"

"Wait, are we talking live necromancers or dead ones?" said Takigawa, whose face then screwed up. "Hold on, are you saying there's something else we have to do to destroy the Kuman?"

"No. There's still a spirit left here, and if my findings are correct," Naru lifted his hand of the old newspapers. "He is a homemade Thai necromancer, specializing in the production of Kuman Thong."

I picked up my book from where I left it and curled up on the couch, though I hung over the back to watch the conversation going on in the entrance hall. Lin had already buried himself in pages of data and monitors of recordings. The whizzing tap of his fingers brought back the air of productive work.

"Should we take this to the kitchen?"

I wrinkled my nose at him. "Come off it, Naru, are you really going to keep me out of the mystery?"

I expected him to deny me, or sneer some sort of irritation at me, but instead he sighed heavily and came back into the parlor, where he came round to flatten out the yellowed classifieds on the coffee table. I grinned in triumph and snuggled into a corner as John and Takigawa gathered round.

After Naru gave a brief overview of my vision and how it had pointed him in the right direction, he went on to explain what he had found. The classifieds had been kept for a reason: instructions. Apparently the editor of the local classifieds paper was an old Thai shaman who had come over during the second world war when the cultural cleansing threatened his practices and life. In America he found it even more difficult to find a need for his magic, so he came up with a system via his classifieds. He'd bait those by putting up a classified every week for a selection of Thai antiques—the details of which would be given on contact. Anyone who asked about anything within the realms of Thai talismans or other necromantic products, he'd give it to them.

But for our gentleman who owned the house before our client, receiving a talisman hadn't been enough. Once he saw the power and gold involved with the production of Kuman Thong, he made a deal with the old man: teach me, and I will get you all the bodies and ingredients you need.

Naru theorized that it had been this old Thai shaman who had set up the parlor as a safe place and the utility closet as his practice room. In order to keep it secret (the price for being caught creating authentic Kuman Thongs was a federal, even international offense, due to the use of a fetus), they couldn't meet as often, so the shaman sent him direction encoded in the classifieds, which our gentleman-turned-apprentice than kept as a sort of spellbook.

Even after years of knowing him and seeing his process, we all did plenty of awestruck staring.

"How did you get all that?" asked John.

"Ever heard of multi-spectral scanning? It's what people use to see portraits that have been painted over by the masters, like the first try of Mona Lisa. I put it to better use scanning for the symbols on the walls of this parlor," he gestured around with a spare newspaper he still had rolled in his hand. "And the walls of the utility closet, while you two were exorcising, of course. I've grown rather tired of this place and would rather not waste time. The symbols proved to be the work of a necromancer, and one I think is more likely to have lived in this house. And also, after doing a background search into the history of these classifieds, I happened to find the Shaman."

"Jeeze, Naru, you should be in the FBI or something." I said, looking at the classifieds to see if I could see the code, but it was probably one between them that only Naru could have picked out by god knows what.

"Like I said, lottery numbers," said Takigawa with a grin.

But Naru had met my eye and the corners of his mouth had twitched. "All I looked for was out of place words, Mai. For example, I doubt an old washer machine would have anything to do with fire or random Thai gibberish. It's amazing how much people miss." He closed his eyes in a full on smirk. "Maybe I should apply to the FBI."

Once more, he had read my mind, and I rolled my eyes. "Yeah yeah, inflate your ego later, what's so special about a necromancer's ghost?"

"I thought it would be obvious. Anyone who aspires to control death would have a warped perspective about death itself, which makes purifying their spirits impossible, especially given that they almost always are murderers."

Takigawa nodded fervently. "Yeah, remember Urado, Mai? In a sick, twisted sort of way, he had been trying to use necromancy. Any spiritual or otherwise magical attempts to manipulate the time of death and what happens afterwards can count as necromancy."

But my brain had stuck at 'Urado' and frozen my gut. I clench my hands into the blanket I had pulled onto my lap. "W-wait, are you saying we're—"

"Calm down," said Naru, with an annoyed glance at Takigawa. "This ghost is obviously different. He hasn't killed anyone, nor, do I think, that he has the power."

"What about Ayako?" piped up John.

"That was a Kuman Thong," said Naru.

"Can you prove that?" said Takigawa.

The younger boy sighed. "My theories are very often right, but even if it wasn't I doubt we'll be in much danger, unless one of you are hiding uteruses in your guts."

John blushed furiously, and Takigawa just grinned.

"So, John, Lin, and I all go up to that closet you and Mai wandered into, do are thing, and call it good?"

"I would hope you'd have a bit more grace than that. You can sense spirits, right Takigawa?"

"When they're powerful or especially evil—but a necromancer, yeah."

"Then we'll have to rely on you. Masako is not only busy, but with this weather…"

"We can always just wait for the cries," said John. "From what I've been hearing from Takigawa, they've been rather consistent, haven't they?"

Naru nodded. "We'll have to use that as an indicator as well."

Takigawa aimed his confident grin at me. "And we always have our Mai-chan. Say you'll keep your super senses peeled for us, sweetheart?"

"I'll do my best!" I chirped. "But don't expect anything like Masako."

"That's it, then. Get prepared."

With that final command in the air, Naru dropped the last of the yellowed classifieds onto the coffee table.


	13. Doing One's Best

**Way to go guest reviewer for guessing InuXBoku Secret Service! That was my purple and white. Though Black Butler was also a very good guess. Seriously, how did the rest of you get what you get with 'purple and white'? Attack on Titan? I mean, just look at the two main characters of InuXBoku: purple and white. Bam.**

 **But enough giving you a hard time. Worship the guest reviewer who guessed it and R &R the hard earned reward.**

Chapter 12

Since I had sworn to stay in the parlor during the exorcism, my end was pretty boring. Since Naru felt completely confidence in his safety in having a penis, he went with them, leaving me alone to fidget and try to pretend that my favorite adventure fantasy novel was more interesting than what was happening on the other side of the house.

But, sooner than I expected, they all returned, satisfied and only marginally shaken—in Lin's case, surprisingly. He stepped too quickly to one of the metal fold up chairs in front of the monitors.

"What's with him?" I asked.

"He doesn't care for baby cries," said Naru in a short fashion that said all too loudly that he would not tolerate any further inquiries into the matter. "The spirit left with a racket."

Weird, I hadn't heard anything. But, then again, I should have known to expect that, as I had never heard baby cries while in the parlor. Protection symbols and all that jazz.

The rest of the evening passed away uneventfully. I filled in Takigawa and John on how Ayako had been doing when I had visited her on my way out of the hospital. She had been awake and high on morphine for the pain, so thus, more than a little loopy and giddy. I didn't mention how she had squinted at Naru and asked why he looked like he had his brains blasted out. He hadn't appreciated that, and we had left soon afterwards.

We had a quiet, humble dinner served to us by one of the male staff that had been assigned to drop by to do such tasks. Given the richness of the house I had been expecting shrimp and steak, but instead we had simple, though delicious, spaghetti and garlic bread. Naru had almost forced me to eat it in the parlor, but Takigawa had verified that he had seen something leave and my begging eventually wore him down to let me walk the few steps to the dining room. He had plans to haul my butt back next door should the light bulbs even give a flicker, though he didn't say it.

And he still made me sleep on the couch.

"Come on, Naru, I have needs you know. Toilet? Shower?"

The look he had on his face was very ugly. He would have told me to pee outside if it hadn't been blizzarding.

When he clamped his jaws tight and continued to try and drill me down with the force of his glare, I let out a noise of disgust.

"No evil darth lord is going to attack me while I'm on the porcelain throne, Naru, or is this your weird way of showing affection?"

His face went curiously blank. For a minute, I actually felt afraid. Being thrown outside to pee in the snow didn't sound all that farfetched.

Takigawa's loud laughter broke the quiet.

"I'll escort her, Naru." He said through snickers. "Darth lord, ha! Mai, I love you. Come on."

At least Naru did step aside at that, though I could feel in passing, as though I stepped through his aura, that he was mortified and doing his best to figure out what to do with it.

Since all the bathrooms were upstairs, we had to go up there, and I turned on the facet to cover up the delicate sounds of my private business from the snickering Monk outside my door.

"Really, Mai, what did you do to him?"

I ignored him. I wasn't in the habit to talk to people through the bathroom door. He did, however, said he could wait while I took a shower and even fetched my bag when I waited in the crack of the door wrapped head to foot in towels.

I didn't look forward to Naru's mood when I returned back downstairs, but I found him sitting in a corner, dressed in his own pajamas (prim and black and manly), and pointedly deep in research on his laptop. I took the hint, wished John, Takigawa, and Lin goodnight, and went to my own book. I could actually focus now that there wasn't a thrilling exorcism going on over my head.

An hour and a half ticked past in silence. Occasionally I got up from my book to throw another log on the fire. But when my eyes started to droop, I kept them riveted on my book. The day had left with my distractions, and I didn't look forward to going to sleep. The echo of the malformed, raw creature still echoed in a not deep enough part of my mind.

Naru's fingers stopped me from turning my page. His dark, ocean eyes met mine over my book.

"You've humiliated me all day. You're not going to get away with it. I'm a proud man, you know this."

I kept my fingers on the page. "What are you going to do? Fire me?" Hate me? I shook that thought away. I had told myself I wouldn't be afraid of that anymore. I thought I had figured out how to be strong.

"That threat has long since lost its power."

'Maybe because I know you won't pull through with it,' I went to say, but the fatigue and the return of my apprehension of the night tightened my throat. Thinking about the monstrosities of our case hadn't been the only thing I had been trying to avoid with my book.

Which Naru proceeded to tug from my hands and drop on the floor.

"Hey!"

His hand landing on the armrest besides my head stopped the next word from leaving my mouth. He had brought himself over me, a knee between my legs, the other hand on the couch cushion besides my waist. I had often read about how men's eyes smoldered with passion, but at that moment looking up at the falling curtains of his black hair, all I saw was the reflection of the amber flames flickering off the surface of his dark irises and lashes.

This time, he kissed me with no clumsiness. He toke over my mouth, the strands of his bangs curled like cool satin ribbons upon my face. He pulled up his other knee so to free the hand at my waist to stroke my face and neck, much as I had done to him, proving that he had been a quick study—inexperience be damned.

When he finally left my lips to trail his own across my cheek, I let out a soft moan without meaning too.

His mouth smiled against the skin under my ear. "Give it back, Mai."

"W-what?"

"Say I'm good at this. Admit it. I'm not afraid of you—I'm not afraid of what you can do to me."

That gave me pause. Despite my sudden hesitation, Naru went on to nibble my ear and plant a kiss beneath it.

"Are you saying…you don't like me?"

He harrumphed in my ear and mumbled something like 'stupid.'

A part of me shattered, cutting into a place deep in my chest and gut. Despite his heat pressed against me, I went cold. The sweat that had gathered from both Naru and a blanket covering me went clammy.

As he tried to press another kiss to my face, I shoved him back. The moment he felt my resistance, I didn't need to push any farther, because he lurched back and to the end of the couch, as though I had burned him.

I sat up, better to feel like I was in control of the situation. "If you say you aren't afraid of me, you're saying you aren't afraid of me breaking your heart because you don't have feelings for me."

He ducked his chin down, as he often did to hide his eyes with his bangs. He brought up a knee to hang his hand off of. "Mai, you're being ridiculous. I told you, I don't kiss girls for fun. Why do you need to be reassured?"

For some reason, that just made me angry. It was as though he was accusing me of being the insecure one. The hypocrisy rubbed me raw.

"Funny," I said, as coldly as I could. "Because from where I'm sitting, you're the one who needs to be reassured, as you have yet to have the guts to be plain with me. What, are you thinking if you don't actually say the words it won't happen? That you'd be impervious to getting hurt?"

"I'm not afraid—" he started.

"Like hell! You've been afraid ever since Gene died!"

That jerked his gaze up. He stared at me, his expression blank, but for the first time in my life I thought I could see an eighteen year old boy staring out from his eyes, even through the flickering images of flames from the fireplace.

I threw off the blanket to stand. "You may think this is just pointless drama—and maybe it is—but I know for a fact that you can't love someone and be afraid of being close to them at the same time. You may deny that you aren't afraid, but you said so yourself back at the hospital—you're afraid of screwing it up, you're afraid of getting hurt, and that's fine, but—"

"Mai,"

"—I'm tired of you thinking you're all that. I'm sorry I was such an idiot and threw myself at you—"

"Mai."

"—but why else would you fool yourself into thinking I really loved your dead brother—"

" _Mai,_ I love you!"

That shut me up.

As the seconds ticked by, I dared to peek over at the boy sitting at the end of the couch looking dark and handsome as ever, even after being shoved off of a girl he had been kissing and then ranted at.

This time, his whole expression could only be described as blazing, just like the amber glow in the fireplace.

"Fine," he spat. "Fine, I'm afraid, does that make you happy? Does it make you happy that you terrify me, is that what you wanted? Am I supposed to delight in the fact that every time we get on cases like this your life could be snuffed out just like my brother's, and yet I'm too god damn selfish to let you go? Am I suppose to be jumping for joy at the very likely prospect that one day you'll wake up and realize that I really am just an arrogant narcissist who has wasted most of his life in books and cold facts, and so thus, has no idea how to make a woman, or even a simple friend, happy? I'm sorry for not saying the exact thing you wanted to hear, I'm sorry for trying to do my best guess at what would be romantic, I'm sorry for not reading your damn mind!"

He had started to shake somewhere in the middle of his speech, and even in the firelight I could see some color draining from his face. The shine of his eyes started to flicker as they jumped from spot to spot, and the hand that had before been relaxed on his knee had clenched till the knuckles shown white.

"Mai, I am not Gene. I am not caring, or loving, or comforting, or whatever. I'm cold, I'm aloof, I'm anti-social, and I don't do romance. What more do you want from me? You've already torn away anything I had to leave reason between us, so what do you want?!"

But now I could see it. What I had seen as he dragged me out of the house where Ayako's blood was; when he had turned on me for shouting that Ayako was dying. I could see it in the line of his shoulders, as they were set just like when he had walked up the stairs to the utility closet. And anyone could see it in the way he clenched his jaw tight and leveled that hard glare at me from beneath his eyebrows.

And for the first time, I wondered how I could have done nothing to comfort him.

He flinched back as I moved towards him, but the couch's other armrest got in his way from a fast enough escape. I held all of him tight, and his tremors shook through my body. Somehow it was more heartbreaking to see my arrogant scientist in such a state than it was to see or hear the babies tortured and tied down to the earth.

"It's alright," I breathed.

"Get off me."

But I didn't. Instead, I squeezed my eyes against the tears I knew would just make this whole drama worse for him and muttered apology after apology.

Eventually his shaking calmed and he let out a long sigh in my embrace.

"I'm sorry, Mai," he breathed. "I…I've done you wrong. Nothing but wrong."

And though I denied that, he only responded by returning my embrace.

 **This time the next chapter will be updated as soon as someone guesses the first anime I ever owned. Clue: swans.**


	14. Karma

**Dang it, and here I thought I was being all clever. Yeah, it's Princess TuTu. Here's the chapter you rightly deserve. And thanks for playing with me. ^.^ I'm sort of stuck in my house in the woods most of the time with just my two year old, so it's good to have people to play with.**

 **R &R! And I'm so glad you guys like my portrayal of Naru. I've heard so many happy reviews on him. It's good to know I did something right, and I hope to write you many stories in the future. ^.^**

Chapter 13

I woke up to amber, coal-fired dim, because bladders don't give a damn about sleep.

Or romance, for that matter, as I had to crawl my way out of the combined force of Naru's arms and the lusciously squishy couch.

Lucky for me, Naru slept on, each of his inhalations clicking before whooshing out in sleeping sighs. I smiled at that. I'd never met anyone who clicked in their sleep.

Downside to a mansion is that you can't just covertly turn on a single light to shuffle to the toilet. They have such freaking high ceilings that the lights have to cover a huge area, and thus have roughly the same amount of power as a search light. I probably wouldn't have woken up anyone safe and closed up in their cozy guest rooms, but Naru had no closed doors to block out the blazing mini-suns (at least mini-suns to my bleary eyed, half asleep state).

Thus, I dug out one of the many easily found flashlights from the bag underneath the black monitors. What was a ghost hunter without flashlights?

I was too sleepy to care how creepy a dark house was by flashlight. The fact that a stinking hot man that I'd loved for the good part of nearly two years also played into that. Thus, I went to the nearest bathroom—the one at the top of the stairs and to your immediate right, did my business, and headed on my way.

A baby started to cry.

That woke me up.

"Aw, come on," I moaned. "This can't be a dream, I can't pee in my dreams, what if I pee in real life?" And Naru with me on the couch—now that was a horrifying thought.

The cry rose to a mind-numbing, pleading pitch and had once more taken up the quality of an infant small enough to need its whole body to cry.

I twisted the flashlight behind me to the utility closet where it came from. The door was ajar, as the framing had been damaged under Lin and Naru's combined force. The rock of my heart fluttering at the base of my throat, as I waited for someone else to hear the crying and join me. I even had what I would say: oh dear, looks like that exorcism didn't work, what do we do now?

But no one came out. I turned the flashlight towards the stairs, where it bleached out the tiny amber glow from the parlor. I should go back—back to Naru's arms, where it was safe and warm and let him deal with this in the morning.

The crying wavered, croaked like a cricket. I remembered the little hands on my chest, and how the tiny body had started to calm in my arms.

A great pressure bore down on me, and I looked up to blink away tears. Poor baby. Poor, pathetic, injured baby.

I turned around and made my way to the utility closet. When my flashlight flickered, then died completely, I felt my way to the door and pushed it open with my fingertips. Inside I could hear the baby wailing for release.

The doorknob pressed cold against my hand, and I hesitated.

"Babies aren't meant to be ghosts," I said to the door. "You hold no ill will. You aren't capable of it. You can't even comprehend harming others. This was never your fault. You were born to be loved, and held, and comforted, not left to cry in a closet."

The baby's crying faltered a bit, as though it could hear me. Then it started up in a higher pitch, frantic, knowing I was there.

 _Help._

I opened the door.

Like before, I could see its small, deformed body despite the darkness. This time no one shoved it into my arms, but rather it squirmed and kicked in the sink with its burnt, raw, bloody limbs. I could see its blood smearing against the porcelain, somehow, even though at first I thought it was the only thing I could see.

I rushed forward, hands outstretched. At my touch the little mishappened hole in the lump of fleshy head wobbled, as though not daring to believe it. The fingerless paddles reached for me and once more held tight to my flesh when I held it hard to my chest.

"Shh shh." Tears were already streaming past my chin. "Shh, little one, shh. It's okay, I got you, I won't leave you alone."

The little body shuddered and its cries lowered to painful whimpers as I gingerly bounced it against my chest. I could feel the blood soaking into my pajama top and dripping off one of my elbows.

Somehow, I could still see the sink. It was almost as though the utility room had become lit with moonlight from the window out in the hall, even though I had been sure the curtains had been closed earlier by Takigawa.

"How about a nice, warm bath," I murmured. "Wash off the blood. You might like the sound of the water." When my teacher's baby had a hard time sleeping, she would turn on a facet in the house for white noise.

With bloody hands, I turned on the facet. Warm mixed with cold, and as I waited for just the right temperature I felt my heart finally calm and the adrenaline slink back from my blood.

Perhaps this baby was what they had failed to exorcize, not the necromancer.

It panicked when I moved to lower it to the sink. I made every soothing noise I could think of and bent over double so its paddles could stay pinched up in my skin. On contacting the rush of lukewarm water, however, its crying abruptly stopped. For a moment, it seemed too stunned for reaction.

Then the malformed hole in its head let out a sound I thought it incapable of: it cooed. A little, perfect 'ooo' like a dove.

And then I could see why.

As the water hit its flayed, red-pink flesh, the blood was washed away and, in its place, new, clean, healthy baby flesh grew back. As I turned it in the water and washed off each of its little limbs, I could only watch in amazement as adorable, chubby legs and toes the size of _Good & Plenty _candy grew back. I found out it was a little girl, not an it, and at each of her happy squawks I let out a shaking laughs of joy, tasting the salt of my own racing tears.

Then, at last, I washed off her poor, too small, lump of a head with its lone hole.

A scalp topped with soft, blond baby fuzz. Dimpled round cheeks. A little face with cheeks like a Cabbage Patch doll screwed up against the flow of water.

The baby spluttered, then opened big, blue eyes at me.

Then she opened her mouth in an unmistakable, gummy smile. She glowed with health and happiness and the bright gold of purification.

"Well aren't you just the most beautiful thing I've ever seen!" I pulled her down to touch my nose to hers, to which she let out a shriek of precious, baby mirth and pawed my face with her ten, perfect fingers. "All you needed was a bath! All this time and you only needed someone to help you clean off!"

 _Get Out._

Ice-hot malice slammed into me, twisting my organs to the bottom of my rib cage and snuffing out my breath. The baby wailed and twisted her hands up against my chest.

True darkness settled in around me. I couldn't see the sink, I couldn't see the baby, though I could still feel her trembling against my breasts and hear the water running.

 _Mine, mine, she is MINE!_

The words flowed through me, below the level of hearing, frizzing on every nerve ending, but no hands touched me. Nothing moved to try and take the baby from me, but I couldn't be sure whether it would stay that way. In my panic I ran to where I thought the door was. Something flickered, and suddenly the flashlight burst to life at my feet with a glow of maroon, Persian rug. I flung myself to it, grabbed it, and swung it back round to the doorway of the utility closet, all the while keeping the wailing tiny girl clamped to my chest.

 _He_ filled the doorway. Eight feet tall, four feet wide, arms ape-ishly long and his figure nothing but black static.

The moment I thought 'him' whatever features I thought I could see to place him apart as male faded away, till all I could make out was the sense that someone unspeakably large and hateful loomed over me, rolling with fury, stepping out of the utility closet to fill the globe of pale light.

 _Give her backLEAVEmine mine mineDIE DIE DIE!_

 _GET OUT!_

The little soft body in my arms clung to me harder, wailing. I imagined how she had been just moments ago, hardly identifiable as human let alone a baby—

Something within me shattered, and fury as I had never known before set my skin on fire.

"No, you get out, bastard!"

The black figure fluttered, and I could feel his surprise. I gathered myself from where I had crouched half-fallen to the floor and stomped my foot forward.

"You're the one who keeps her here, suffering like this! If anyone doesn't belong here, it's you! You foul, you sick, you—" and then it hit me, as though handed to me by some otherworldly power. "She's your anchor. You're using her to stay tied to this world."

The flashlight blinked, and in that fraction of a second the elastic figure sunk back into the doorway, hunched like a gorilla, invisible eyes boring into me.

 _Stop. Shut up. Shut up. Shut UPDIE! DIE! LEAVE AND DIE!you will_ _ **DIE!**_

But my mind was rolling. I could almost hear Gene whispering with that shrewd Naru smirk: _Karma is a bitch._

"NO YOU FUCKING DIE! This baby didn't die before she was born, you killed her! You killed her so you wouldn't have to face what's waiting for you on the other side for trapping the souls of all those defenseless babies! Hell, you probably killed a few of them yourself!"

The doorway slanted sideways, the black soul becoming more and more cramped within it. Wood groaned. Rapping sounds pattered across the ceiling and walls like a storm of hailstones let loose on the house. Somewhere beyond the light of my flashlight, doors opened and slammed.

"So don't you dare threaten me—DON'T YOU DARE THREATEN HER! I have her now, she's safe from you, so you have no power here! Nothing's keeping you back from the shitloads of karma heading your way, so _leave!_ Die! AND FACE WHAT YOU'VE DONE!"

The whole house shrieked with snapping wood. It groaned with bending bolts, shattering pillars, cracking foundation—

And then there was silence. The doorway stood as it always had, empty, and with the heater's blinking lights within. Dust motes floated about in the flashlight's beams.

I hugged the baby to my face. Her little body truly did glow gold now, and I could see her blue eyes bright as sapphires watching me above a somewhat tentative, gummy smile—if a baby could be tentative in their smiles. I could barely remember the horror she had been before.

Affection warmed me like a dip in a hot bath, and the muscles that had coiled in the darkness relaxed. I took a ragged breath, and it finally reached my lungs.

I kissed her. If only rose petals could be as soft as her skin.

"Now you can finally be with your mommy." I rested my forehead to hers, sighing out the relief I hadn't felt since arriving here. "I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. But at least you're safe now. You're safe now."

"Mai?"

The hall light flicked on, momentarily blinding me. The weight in my arms vanished, and I thought I could hear the echo of baby cooing.

Monk stood in the hallway, haggard and just more than a little bewildered. Just as John appeared in the crack of his doorway, I heard Naru fumbling up the stairs with a curse.

"—just one minute—one damn minute—"

John rubbed one of his eyes, the other narrowed at me. "What's going on?"

"Who are you screaming at?" asked Takigawa in his best 'I-don't-think-you're-crazy' voice.

And then Naru reached them, wild eyed, hair mussed, and looking P-I-S-S-E-D. I glanced down to make sure the blood on my pajamas had been taken with the spirits. It had.

"This time I really will fire you," Naru started.

"Woa! Hang on! Let me explain."

"Yeah, Naru, let her—" Takigawa did a double take. "Why are you coming up from downstairs?"

"Where did all those rapping noises come from?" asked John. "I thought the whole house was coming down."

Takigawa nodded, still frowning a bit at Naru. "Yeah, Mai started yelling and an earthquake started up. Did you get in a fight with the spirit or something?"

At Naru's paling expression, John's dawning horror, and Takigawa's growing smirk at comprehension between myself and our boss, I could see that I wasn't going to get back to my warm place on the couch anytime soon.

I gave my best toothy smile. "Uh, would you believe me if I said I think there's one last Kuman behind the sink?"


	15. Epilogue

**Because I like you guys. ^.^ Oh, also, I need some ghost/monster ideas for my next story. Care to throw me some ideas? One's I've already done: wendigo, acheri, reverant, draugr, crowd ghost, slenderman, and...crap, what was that other one? Well, there's obviously Kuman Thong, but what was the last one...**

 **Anyhoo, ideas! I'm open.**

Epilogue

Turns out, I was right about the hidden Kuman Thong. Our client wasn't too pleased with the damage yanking out a sink and it's plumbing from a wall can do, but when we showed him the golden mummy baby as proof, he settled down right quick, especially when we explained to him that the Kuman Thong, which had been cursed to the earth anyways, had been then used as an anchor for another more malicious spirit to cling onto. It was the crying of this specific baby, which later test proved had been much older than any Kuman Thong should be (four months old, to be exact), that had disturbed his house so. The necromancer could only avoid karma for so long, and doing crap to innocent babies brought a heck of a lot of it with it.

Ayako recovered and followed us back to Tokyo three days afterwards with a doctor's note to be on bed rest for the next few weeks. Her parents, who are doctors (in case you've forgotten), were all too eager to suck her back home and enforce that rule. Monk filled her in on the action she missed and she was more than impressed with me. I turned off after she started saying something about having natural spiritual abilities on top of psychic talent, to which Takigawa just said 'duh, how else could she do the nine cuts?'

To which, I realized, I had totally forgotten about. In the heat of the moment I just took to cussing the ghost down rather than doing any proper protective magic. I didn't want to know what that said about me…

Naru told me anyways.

"It means you're a moron who runs on instincts and sentimentality. Good job. Another case solved by your tactless disuse of common sense."

I would've thrown his tea into his face if I hadn't thought that his not firing me was an apology in itself.

Course, after being teased for falling asleep with me by Takigawa (for a full five minutes before his could-kill-puppies glare shut the monk up), Naru kept to himself and said nothing even remotely related to what occurred between us during the case for a week. It didn't help that it was finals week and I had already asked for time off to study, nor was I comfortable enough to just call him up and start demanding why he hadn't hunted me down and kissed me senseless.

There also was the small fear on my part that he had changed his mind about being with me after I had more or less grinded his face into his own guarded fear and insecurity.

Saturday afternoon, with finals finished, I walked through the office door more apprehensive than I wanted to be. Outside the cloudy sky and foggy air blended in with the snow and grey of the city. The door to Naru's office was closed and I could hear the heater humming away. I bit my lip and peeled off my winter wear.

"Naru? You here?"

There was a creak of office chair. Steps. Then my tall, dark, and handsome scientist appeared in his office doorway.

"Where else would I be? The data from our previous case is on your desk to be filed away. Please remember to put the temperature readings before the sonograms this time."

"Right."

"And some tea. Earl grey."

I sighed. So, we were going back to before. "Yes, sir."

He moved to close the door, but stopped. I had yet to move as well and kept my gaze somewhere between his navel and knees.

"What happened to the assertive Mai?"

I blinked owlishly. "Eh?"

He had his head cocked to the side and that familiar smirk I knew all too well. "Practically forced yourself on me with something about how I should just deal with it. Not exactly the most effective way to seduce a man, but then, if you weren't hopelessly clumsy you wouldn't be my Mai."

It took me a moment to register the whole mini-speech. But his widening smirk slapped some sense into me and I didn't know whether to roar with relief or chuck my shoe at his fat head.

I settled for a glare. "I'd be careful with that delusion, sir. You're the one who kissed my teeth and panted about it afterwards."

The smirk fell. It was his business face again. "Don't you have a job to do?"

"I don't know, are we done here? Or do you want to practice your flirting more, because that was pathetic."

"I don't flirt."

"Sure."

"I don't even tease."

"Yeah."

There was a pause in which we just stared each other down. I hung my hands on my hips and pouted. He closed his eyes, sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and leaned against the doorway.

"What do you want?"

Somehow his tired tone just irritated me farther. What, so spending time with me was a burden now? Showing affection was a burden?

"What do you mean what do I want?"

"Always spelling it out with you," he grumped, then leveled a glare at me from beneath his eyebrows. "I already told you I don't do romance. I don't read it, don't watch it, don't listen to it, don't do it. So if there's something you want me to do you've got to tell me."

I frowned. "So…you want to, you know, stay with me?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

"Not…really?"

He dropped his hand and stared, incredulous. I could feel my well built indignation melting.

"What?" I asked.

"Mai, haven't you listened to a word I've said?" Sighing again, he ran both hands through his hair and nudged the door the rest of the way open. "You're the only girl I've ever kissed, the only girl I've ever loved, the only girl I've even—I said I loved you, didn't I? Do you think I could just recant that over night?"

Flushed now, and feeling more than a little fuzzy, I shrugged. "People do it all the time."

"I'm not people."

"Alright, alright. Fine," best to not make this complicated. I pulled on a finger nervously. "Then I want you to tell me you love me frequently, because, you know, I'm stupid."

He waited. All business. All stoic seriousness. I had to smile, to which his eye twitched.

"Is that all?" he asked tersely.

But that did it for me. I tipped my head back and laughed.

Because my poor, precious, genius Naru, who was always several steps ahead and on top of everyone else, really didn't have a clue.

He disappeared in a blink of an eye and slammed the door behind him. Such easily injured pride.

"Oh, come on, Naru, I'm sorry for laughing. Naru," I trotted breathlessly up to his door. "You have to admit it's just a little bit funny." Ugh! No! Wrong thing to say. Bad Mai. "Scratch that. Look, everyone feels a little lost with this sort of thing. It's sort of the nature of it."

Nothing. I didn't even hear his chair squeak. I took a deep breath to rid myself of the rest of my giggles, because I knew he'd hear them in my voice whether I let them out or not.

"Look, I don't know what I'm doing either. All I know is that I want to be with you all the time and that I want you to be happy. Completely happy. Always happy. And maybe…" I hesitated, but then reconsidered the weight in which Naru gave to this particular subject. I couldn't see him being creeped out, and that was just another reason why I loved him.

So I pressed on. "If you're okay with it, if you decide you want it, maybe getting married one day. Have little Naru babies…"

I thought I heard the scuff of a shoe on carpet, but other than that, nothing happened. After standing there stupidly for a few more minutes, I bit my lip and decided I better get on with my job before I gave him another reason to be mad with me.

First, I tended to the tea. While I waited for the water to boil I took up the binder of data and flipped through the pages. Little golden mummies adorned the pages of some, and I hurriedly skimmed over them, feeling my face heat up. Why did I have to say 'Naru babies,' why? Ugh, this would have gone so much smoother if we hadn't just finished a case with babies.

I jumped at the shrill whistling of the teapot and quickly took it off the burner. I poured the cup of earl gray two thirds of the way before adding the honey and cream I knew he liked.

Without warning, warm, strong arms slipped around my waist. I smelt sage as he buried his nose into my hair at the nape of my neck.

"Are you 'people'?"

The question was so small I could have easily pretended not to hear it. I could hardly believe it as it was. This vulnerable part of Naru still seemed on the same level as unicorns and dragons, and yet, at the same time, I couldn't understand how I had missed it.

I touched one of his hands. "No."

"Don't be so sure. I really am a cold person. I…Gene was much better at this. You'll always be free to leave—to go somewhere else. I couldn't stand it if I was the one—if you had an excuse to blame me for your miserable life." At the last second he saved himself, but it only made me smile, especially since I had heard the unspoken 'please don't leave me' behind his first question.

"I said I wasn't going to stop, didn't I? Now take your stupid tea and get over yourself, narcissist."

He pulled away, and the touch of air on my back and waist felt colder than before. Before I could move to finish my job, his hands returned to turn me around and meet his dark, blue eyes, which had a somewhat dangerous edge to them. His breath brushed across my face, lips parted.

"That being said," he murmured, caging me in by gripping the counter behind me. "Where'd you learn how to kiss?"

"Google?"

"I'm not stupid."

Though he was possessive, as he proceeded to show by giving me that long awaited 'kiss me senseless' session I had been waiting for all week.

And I hadn't been the one to use Google.


	16. Sequel: Plain

**If you liked** ** _Cumin_** **, check out it's sequel:** ** _Plain_** **. I update at least every week, if not more.**

 **And thanks again for reading. It is one of the greatest pleasures to writing a story.**


	17. Epilogue 2

Cumin Epilogue

"Everyone's Terrors"

A promotional oneshot for Cumin

 **Author's Intro/Gift:**

 **Since it's lame to give you all an announcement without a story update, I offer you this little epilogue!**

 **Why the announcement? Today I release the first book in a series of inexpensive Kindle books that I've started to help put food on the table LITERALLY, as in I'm having a hard time paying for food and the basics. If you can, please drop by and pick up a copy of it.**

 **It's titled "Wendy" and you can find it on Amazon under the pen name T.S. Lowe. I've put a synopsis at the end of this chapter.**

 **Now I'll get out of your way...**

"So, why does Lin have a thing with babies crying?"

Naru just kept typing. The tea I had just placed next to his mouse curled steam across his fingers. I waited just before it got awkward before saying his name again.

"I heard you the first time," he said, picking up his tea than for no other reason than to sniff those steam trails into his nostrils. It wasn't like he could drink it at this temperature—op. I was wrong. Freak of nature.

"So?"

"Sounds like something you should be asking him," he said before taking another scalding sip.

I couldn't help myself. "How do you not have blisters on the roof of your tongue?"

"It's not that hot. You see the steam more because of the humidity today and the lower temperature I like to keep my office."

"Oh, jee, then how about blisters in your stomach?"

"Was there a point to that comment?"

"Uh, to initiate play?"

He turned his head to grace me with his favorite look to give me: you're an idiot.

You'd think that, after becoming his girlfriend, he'd actually, you know, stop doing that. Maybe treat me with a little respect.

"I treat you with plenty of respect," he said, once more showing uncanny ability to read my mind—not ever when it's important, mind you. It only works when it can be used against me.

He swerved back to the computer screen, picking up his tea again. "But we are still working. Haven't you called Ms. Jane back about her Buick?"

"I still don't see why we can't do a haunted car."

"It's not a haunted car. It's an old car that needs the junk yard. Now get."

"But you haven't told me why Lin doesn't like babies."

"Lin likes babies fine," said Naru with a sniff, putting down his tea. "And I already said you'll have to ask him."

I whined. "But Lin's intimidating."

"Can face down a ghost threatening her life, but can't ask her co-worker a simple question. Tut tut."

I guess that could be counted as a push of encouragement, as tasteless as it was. "Fine, be that way. I put hair in your tea."

"Right." He said, taking another sip as he did it, just to show he knew my threat was groundless.

I stuck my tongue out at him and backtracked out of the office. I glanced over at Lin's office, which more often than not was closed and quiet, and allowed myself a little shudder. Despite whatever 'leaps' or 'bounds' we had taken in our relationship, it was still a bit of a strain to call Lin a friend. The guy just didn't want friends, or at least, not the kind he'd find around here.

Deciding I'd just have to leave this mystery unsolved (which twisted me in all sorts of wrong directions), I got back to my desk and called up the lady convinced her Buick was going to kill her one of these days to give Naru's recommendation of a new mechanic, one preferably unknown to her current one.

I was just cutting out newspaper clippings when the phone rang.

"Shibuya Psychic Research, this is Mai speaking."

"Hey, girly. You hit your lunch break yet?"

"Oh, hello Ayako. Aren't you suppose to be at work like a good adult?"

"Ha ha, real funny. Today actually happens to be my day _off_ and I know I'd probably just be interrupting you cutting out newspaper clippings or telling some old hag her cat isn't possessed."

I pushed away the newspaper. "Close, but not quite. Naru's been moving our lunch hours around, since we've gotten a few clients who come during their lunch hour, so mine's at three."

"Oh, poo, tell him two. He can wait around till three."

"Pay for my food and I will."

"Mooch. Fine. Tacos at the usual place, two."

I laughed—and quickly turned it into a cackle. I had to play my part as die hard manipulator, after all.

We were just saying our good-byes when a sudden though struck me.

"Ayako, why are you so afraid of spiders?"

She made a grunt of dismissive disbelief. "Why not? Every other person is afraid of them too."

"Not to the degree you are."

She hmmphed. "That's because they're ugly, creepy as hell, some can kill you, and then the way they move, ugh!"

"But you don't have any bad experience in your childhood or anything?"

"Pretty much every experience with spiders is bad, childhood or not."

Well. So much for plunging into Ayako's deep psyche.

Naru grunted his permittance. So, after I finished the news clips and outlining a report on possible paranormal activity in a hotel, I met Ayako at a wonderful hole in the wall Taco restaurant. Whoever said great Mexican food couldn't be found in Tokyo should be shot.

After a few minutes of light chatter about some dude at her parent's hospital hitting on her, Monk came to mind. I more or less had a dream of hooking up Ayako and Monk together, so, in an attempt to gauge any depths to that part of Ayako, I asked, "What do you think Takigawa's biggest fear is?"

"Beats me. What's got you on this fear kick anyways?"

"Oh, I was wondering why Lin had a thing with babies crying."

She rested an elbow on the table and leaned her cheek into her hand. "Huh. Well, that fear did sort of come out of the blue. And he slept out in the van in all that cold and everything. Didn't even think the guy could feel fear." She took a long drag on her soda, thoughtful.

So much for those depths as well. What was she, a kiddie pool? Okay, that was mean. I can't believe I thought that about a friend. Seriously, what was wrong with me?

Besides, once she came around from contemplating the flickering light on the ceiling to ask what my greatest fear was, everything I could prattle off she summed up to just things anyone would be afraid of. Dying, getting stuck in the Urado mansion, various other ghost story materials, Naru cheating on me, Naru realizing just how much better he could get than me. Naru realizing how out of my league he was.

I didn't really mention those last two to her, as I already knew what her response would be. I appreciated the predicted response anyways.

Then I returned to the office fifteen minutes before four, an older woman sat in the black sofas. Her hair was thin and cut in a short, helmet like fashion that left her tall forehead revealed and shiny. Her clothes were plain, proven business attire, and the purse at her side was also a plain, tried blue. Her hands rolled over one another as a good deal of our clients tended to do.

"Oh goodness. I was beginning to think he forgot about me," she said, and her voice was high and crackly. "Are you Ms. Taniyama?"

"Yes, I am." My stomach had constricted in sympathetic pain at the sight of her. There were bags under her eyes, along a deer-in-the-headlight look. "Let me get you some tea, I have some to help with nerves. Would you like to tell me what's troubling you while I do so?"

"If-if you think you can…can do something."

I shuffled over to the kitchen, motioning to her to follow me. As I filled up the electric kettle, I couldn't help thinking how very odd it was for Naru to leave a client waiting. That happened, like, never.

And as she started talking, I began to understand a little bit of why. It was the Buick lady. The very one I had called that morning to tell her that Naru had turned down her haunted car case.

As she rattled into the fourth story of her car seemingly taking control of the wheel and pulling her into a mysterious side road on her way home from work, I handed off her tea and decided I'd just have to bite the bullet.

"Is your car in the parking lot?" I asked.

"Why, yes, yes it is."

"I can take a look at it. I'm not a researcher like Na—Mr. Shibuya, but I'm a little clairvoyant myself. He keeps me on hand not just for secretarial purposes."

The way her face lit up with hope made me actually feel guilty for saying that.

 _You owe me big time, Naru._

The Buick was exactly as it looked in the photo she sent: black, old, square, and with patches of coppery rust showing through. She went around and opened the doors for me, even going as far as to open up the trunk. The first thing I noticed was how clean it was. The carpet and seats were obviously worn and stained from previous occupants, but Ms….gosh, I'd already forgotten her name. Crud.

As I slid into the front seat, however, an overwhelming stench came to my nose, along with an sinking, sickening sensation. I put a hand to my mouth and quickly got out, hair prickling all along my arms and back.

The inside of the car suddenly looked like the entrance to a dark, dank hole to me, even though everything was just as clean as it had been.

"Ms. Taniyama?" She came back around from the trunk.

The nausea passed away just as soon as it came, so I gave her a weak smile. "Just…the smell."

"Yes, I've had it deep cleaned and shampooed multiple times, and sometimes it seems like it's gone away, but it's always there."

Of course. I should have remembered that from the reports. Right.

I took a look around the car, trying to look professional as she kept talking, even returning to old stories she had already told me. I found myself avoiding looking through the windows, even though the back seat of the car was just as clean as the front.

For some reason, this car scared me.

I swallowed as I came back to the driver's side. Was there any point in going back to Naru? No. A bad smell and some initial impression wasn't enough to drag him down here to a job he clearly didn't want. I'd have to try it again.

"Could I have a try sitting in it again?"

"Of course! Of course!"

So, pushing aside the gut feeling to do otherwise, I slipped back into the driver's seat. As I breathed through my mouth, I closed my eyes. For the first time, Ms….whatever her name was had gone completely silent, and I could hear the nearby traffic. As the seconds ticked by, I found myself sweating. The sun coming through the windshield became burning. I peeled off my sweater, but even as I did that I continued to get hotter and hotter.

"Man, these black cars can get hot," I said mildly, opening my eyes to look out at her.

To find her staring back at me inches away, wearing the same heavy winter coat she had come inside in, with the dirty parking lot snow piled up behind her to her knees.

And me in my t-shirt, sweating like it was a summer day.

Feeling dread that wasn't mine begin to encroach on me, I stepped out and was instantly naked to the icy chill of the winter day.

Okay, that was weird.

I shut the door, probably harder than I intended to, my sweater over my arm.

"Ma'am," I started, hesitantly. "Do you think you could get a different car?"

"But it is a rather nice car. I got it from my sister for free, I couldn't have a car any other way, and its saved me so much time in commuting to my work, even with all the weird quirks."

"Why did your sister give it to you?"

She gave me a funny look, probably because she had already put that in an email or something, but said, "She got it for free from some other woman. That's why I think it's haunted."

"Do you have your sister's number?"

"Yes, why?"

"I just get the feeling it will come handy."

And it so it did. Once I more or less pounded my way into Naru's office to demand he look into it, he found that the woman who had own the car before sister had wanted to be rid of the car after she forgot her infant daughter was in the back during a hot summer day. Her daughter had died.

Naru gave the woman Takigawa's number, told her she would give Takigawa his personal recommendation, and ushered her to the door with a fresh cup of tea.

Just as she was about to leave, Lin immerged from his shadowy corner of SPR. In his hands was a small talisman with a peculiar, knotted string through it.

"Here," he gently pressed it into the woman's hand. "This should calm any spirits until you can cleanse the vehicle."

Poor girl looked like she was crossed between crying and kissing him. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

She had barely closed the door before Naru and Lin both turned towards their respective haunts. I wanted to stomp and shout them still, but could find no other reason to keep them standing there. They had their own work to do, whatever that was. Though it did seem rather strange that Lin would come out during that particular client's story. Then I realized there had been a baby involved, and without really having an idea what I meant by it, I slid in before he could close the door.

To come under direct fire of Lin's very tall, very dark, very hard stare.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Uh, um, I was just wondering—you don't have to tell me, I don't know—I just have this weird curiosity of late, I've been asking everyone, you see." I looked down at my feet. I knew I didn't have any reason to be nervous. It wasn't like Lin was mean or anything.

"What?" It wasn't inviting, nor was it downright discouraging.

So I just pushed it out. "Why are you so afraid of babies?"

To my relief, he didn't freak out or glare at me. He just raised one black eyebrow.

And to my great surprise, he answered.

"I grew up during the height of China's one child policy. It wasn't uncommon for parents to get rid of their female babies. On more than one occasion I'd follow the sound of a baby crying to find an infant in…rather inhuman circumstances. My family started up an orphanage in an attempt to make a place for the children of the…of rape, but I found myself bringing in more babies. A few died."

My hands had gone to my mouth.

"So whenever you hear a baby cry…" I said, suddenly wishing I hadn't asked.

"I'm afraid of what I'll find," he said, flat and emotionless.

Which told me a lot about Lin.

Trembling, both from the car and Lin's explanation, I closed his door behind me and wandered towards my desk.

Naru popped his head out before I had a chance to sit down. Whatever he had about to tell me got lost in his frown.

"You're pale," he said.

"I'm fine." I said quickly.

He looked at me for a moment longer before stepping towards me. He came around my desk and stopped close enough to me that I could drug myself on his sage and tea scent.

"You're shaken," he stated, as he would a plain fact of one of his cases. "Was it the car or something else?"

I took a deep breath and leaned my forehead on his chest. "Did people really abandon babies all over the place in China?"

"Ah. So you asked Lin."

"Do they?"

Naru actually hesitated at that. Which didn't do me any good, and I recoiled back from him.

"Mai, infanticide isn't new or unique to the world. Of course you're going to get high levels of it in countries that ban having more than one child."

"But that's…" I didn't have a word for it. It was like the whole Kuman Thong case had just been a passing fancy, or a case of the chicken pox. "Can't they just put their baby girls up for adoption?"

He sighed. "Mai, don't dwell on this. There's nothing you can do. Adoption, especially international adoption, is incredibly expensive for no express purpose other than to fill government pockets. But China isn't as bad as it use to be, they've put measures in to put a stop to it already, so stop thinking." He searched my face. "You're still thinking."

"Of course I'm still thinking, moron, how can I not? That's horrible." I hugged myself. Tight. "And then that lady just forgot—how do you forget you have your baby with you? And on a hot day?"

I had actually started to tear up. But I felt more shaken up and appalled than sad, so the tears just percolated, hot and heavy.

Naru sighed heavily. After a moment or so, where he stared at me, seemingly at a loss (which he probably was), he gingerly took my hand and pulled me around the desk. As we passed Lin's door, he knocked on it.

"Mai and I are leaving early. Close up, will you?"

"Yes," came the flat response on the other side.

"Where are we going?" I asked. I knew Naru lived within walking distance of the office, but with me it was a slightly different story.

"I'm finding you something to eat and sticking you onto the first playground of kids I can find."

A shaky smile curled my lips. "It's winter. Nobody's going to be playing on the playground."

"Then I'll find some other annoyingly happy kid's place."

"Naru, I'm okay. You don't need to expose me to happy kids."

He paused in the open doorway, ghosts of snowflakes fluttering about his jacked and playing with my hair. In that moment, as in many moments, he looked like he belonged in a commercial for men's fashion or cologne, and it was utterly unfair.

"Don't I?" he asked, in a small, low voice. The one he used when he wasn't sure of the answer, because Naru was always sure.

Warmed, and pleased, I squeezed his hand.

"Nah. You'll do just fine," I said.

And he would. Because Naru would never allow such an injustice near him, and he put a stop to the haunting of such injustices for a living.

I was in a good place.

 **"Wendy" synopsis:**

 _Wendy knows she tends to be a mother hen to her friends. But if she doesn't, who will? Her boys are lost from their parents in more ways then one, especially the mysterious Kolya, who awkwardly befriended them after fleeing the Russian mafia. She almost wishes he hadn't when she finds herself on the end of what must be a one-sided love. After all, why would the cool, handsome, aloof Kolya have any interest in a nagging she-man like her?_

 _But when Kolya's past catches up with them, getting rid of an unwanted crush will be the last thing on Wendy's mind._

 **You get a book and I get milk. You don't get me milk, and you still get an extra chapter of your favorite story.**


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